THE  -HERMIT 
AND  THE  WILD  WOMAN. 

AND  OTHER  STORIES 

BY 
EDITH    \VHARTON 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBXER'S  SONS 


MCMVIII 


COPYRIGHT,   1908,  BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1908 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

I 

The  Hermit  and  the  Wild  Woman  3 

II 

The  Last  Asset  43 

III 

In   Trust  97 

IV 

The  Pretext  129 

V 

The  Verdict  177 

VI 

The  Pot-Boiler  195 

VII 

The  Best  Man  241 


226663 


THE    HERMIT    AND    THE    WILD 
WOMAN 


THE     HERMIT    AND    THE    WILD 
WOMAN 


THE  Hermit  lived  in  a  cave  in  the  hollow  of  a  hill. 
Below  him  was  a  glen,  with  a  stream  in  a  coppice 
of  oaks  and  alders,  and  across  the  valley,  half  a 
day's  journey  distant,  another  hill,  steep  and  bristling, 
raised  against  the  sky  a  little  walled  town  with  Ghibelline 
swallow-tails. 

When  the  Hermit  was  a  lad,  and  lived  in  the  town,  the 
crenellations  of  the  walls  had  been  square-topped,  and  a 
Guelf  lord  had  flown  his  standard  from  the  keep.  Then 
one  day  a  steel-coloured  line  of  men-at-arms  rode  across 
the  valley,  wound  up  the  hill  and  battered  in  the  gates. 
Stones  and  Greek  fire  rained  from  the  ramparts,  shields 
clashed  in  the  streets,  blade  sprang  at  blade  in  passages 
and  stairways,  pikes  and  lances  dripped  above  huddled 
flesh,  and  all  the  still  familiar  place  was  a  stew  of  dying 
bodies.  The  boy  fled  from  it  in  horror.  He  had  seen  his 
father  go  forth  and  not  come  back,  his  mother  drop  dead 
from  an  arquebuse  shot  as  she  leaned  from  the  platform 
of  the  tower,  his  little  sister  fall  with  a  slit  throat  across 
the  altar  steps  of  the  chapel — and  he  ran,  ran  for  his  life, 
[3] 


x-irERMiT 

through  the  slippery  streets,  over  warm  twitching  bodies, 
between  legs  of  soldiers  carousing,  out  of  the  gates,  past 
'.  burning  farms,  trampled  wheat-fields,  orchards  stripped 
and  broken,  till  the  still  woods  received  him  and  he  fell 
face  down  on  the  unmutilated  earth. 

He  had  no  wish  to  go  back.  His  longing  was  to  live  hid 
den  from  life.  Up  the  hillside  he  found  a  hollow  rock,  and 
built  before  it  a  porch  of  boughs  bound  with  withies.  He 
fed  on  nuts  and  roots,  and  on  trout  caught  with  his  hands 
under  the  stones  in  the  stream.  He  had  always  been  a  quiet 
boy,  liking  to  sit  at  his  mothers  feet  and  watch  the  flowers 
grow  under  her  needle,  while  the  chaplain  read  the  histories 
of  the  Desert  Fathers  from  a  great  silver-clasped  volume. 
He  would  rather  have  been  bred  a  clerk  and  scholar  than 
a  knight's  son,  and  his  happiest  moments  were  when  he 
served  mass  for  the  chaplain  in  the  early  morning,  and  felt 
his  heart  flutter  up  and  up  like  a  lark,  up  and  up  till  it  was 
lost  in  infinite  space  and  brightness.  Almost  as  happy  were 
the  hours  when  he  sat  beside  the  foreign  painter  who  came 
over  the  mountains  to  paint  the  chapel,  and  under  whose 
brush  celestial  faces  grew  out  of  the  wall  as  if  he  had  sown 
some  magic  seed  which  flowered  while  you  watched  it. 
With  the  appearing  of  every  gold-rimmed  face  the  boy  felt 
he  had  won  another  friend,  a  friend  who  would  come  and 
bend  above  him  at  night,  keeping  the  ugly  visions  from  his 
pillow — visions  of  the  gnawing  monsters  .about  the  church- 
porch,  evil-faced  bats  and  dragons,  giant  worms  and  winged 
[4] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

bristling  hogs,  a  devil's  flock  who  crept  down  from  the 
stone- work  at  night  and  hunted  the  souls  of  sinful  children 
through  the  town.  With  the  growth  of  the  picture  the  bright 
mailed  angels  thronged  so  close  about  the  boy's  bed  that 
between  their  interwoven  wings  not  a  snout  or  a  claw  could 
force  itself;  and  he  would  turn  over  sighing  on  his  pillow, 
which  felt  as  soft  and  warm  as  if  it  had  been  lined  with 
down  from  those  sheltering  pinions. 

All  these  thoughts  came  back  to  him  in  his  cave  on 
the  cliff-side.  The  stillness  seemed  to  enclose  him  with 
wings,  to  fold  him  away  from  life  and  evil.  He  was  never 
restless  or  discontented.  He  loved  the  long  silent  empty 
days,  each  one  as  like  the  other  as  pearls  in  a  well-matched 
string.  Above  all  he  liked  to  have  time  to  save  his  soul.  He 
had  been  greatly  troubled  about  his  soul  since  a  band  of 
Flagellants  had  passed  through  the  town,  showing  their 
gaunt  scourged  bodies  and  exhorting  the  people  to  turn 
from  soft  raiment  and  delicate  fare,  from  marriage  and 
money-getting  and  dancing  and  games,  and  think  only 
how  they  might  escape  the  devil's  talons  and  the  great  red 
blaze  of  hell.  For  days  that  red  blaze  hung  on  the  edge  of 
the  boy's  thoughts  like  the  light  of  a  burning  city  across  a 
plain.  There  seemed  to  be  so  many  pitfalls  to  avoid — so 
many  things  were  wicked  which  one  might  have  supposed 
to  be  harmless.  How  could  a  child  of  his  age  tell  ?  He  dared 
not  for  a  moment  think  of  anything  else.  And  the  scene  of 
sack  and  slaughter  from  which  he  had  fled  gave  shape  and 
[5] 


THE   HERMIT 

distinctness  to  that  blood-red  vision.  Hell  was  like  that,  only 
a  million  million  times  worse.  Now  he  knew  how  flesh 
looked  when  devil's  pincers  tore  it,  how  the  shrieks  of  the 
damned  sounded,  and  how  roasting  bodies  smelled.  How 
could  a  Christian  spare  one  moment  of  his  days  and  nights 
from  the  long  long  struggle  to  keep  safe  from  the  wrath  to 
come? 

Gradually  the  horror  faded,  leaving  only  a  tranquil 
pleasure  in  the  minute  performance  of  his  religious  duties. 
His  mind  was  not  naturally  given  to  the  contemplation 
of  evil,  and  in  the  blessed  solitude  of  his  new  life  his  thoughts 
dwelt  more  and  more  on  the  beauty  of  holiness.  His  desire 
was  to  be  perfectly  good,  and  to  live  in  love  and  charity 
with  his  fellows;  and  how  could  one  do  this  without  flee 
ing  from  them? 

At  first  his  life  was  difficult,  for  in  winter  he  was  put  to 
great  straits  to  feed  himself;  and  there  were  nights  when 
the  sky  was  like  an  iron  vault,  and  a  hoarse  wind  rattled 
the  oak-wood  in  the  valley,  and  a  fear  came  on  him  that 
was  worse  than  any  cold.  But  in  time  it  became  known  to 
his  townsfolk  and  to  the  peasants  in  the  neighbouring  val 
leys  that  he  had  withdrawn  to  the  wilderness  to  lead  a  godly 
life;  and  after  that  his  worst  hardships  were  over,  for  pious 
persons  brought  him  gifts  of  oil  and  dried  fruit,  one  good 
woman  gave  him  seeds  from  her  garden,  another  spun  for 
him  a  hodden  gown,  and  others  would  have  brought  him 
all  manner  of  food  and  clothing,  had  he  not  refused  to  ac- 
[6] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

cept  anything  but  for  his  bare  needs.  The  woman  who  had 
given  him  the  seeds  showed  him  also  how  to  build  a  little 
garden  on  the  southern  ledge  of  his  cliff,  and  all  one  sum 
mer  the  Hermit  carried  up  soil  from  the  streamside,  and 
the  next  he  carried  up  water  to  keep  his  garden  green. 
After  that  the  fear  of  solitude  passed  from  him,  for  he  was 
so  busy  all  day  that  at  night  he  had  much  ado  to  fight  off 
the  demon  of  sleep,  which  Saint  Arsenius  the  Abbot  has 
denounced  as  the  chief  foe  of  the  solitary.  His  memory  kept 
good  store  of  prayers  and  litanies,  besides  long  passages 
from  the  Mass  and  other  offices,  and  he  marked  the  hours 
of  his  day  by  different  acts  of  devotion.  On  Sundays  and 
feast  days,  when  the  wind  was  set  his  way,  he  could  hear 
the  church  bells  from  his  native  town,  and  these  helped  him 
to  follow  the  worship  of  the  faithful,  and  to  bear  in  mind  the 
seasons  of  the  liturgical  year;  and  what  with  carrying  up 
water  from  the  river,  digging  in  the  garden,  gathering 
fagots  for  his  fire,  observing  his  religious  duties,  and 
keeping  his  thoughts  continually  on  the  salvation  of  his 
soul,  the  Hermit  knew  not  a  moment's  idleness. 

At  first,  during  his  night  vigils,  he  had  felt  a  fear  of  the 
stars,  which  seemed  to  set  a  cruel  watch  on  him,  as  though 
they  spied  out  the  frailty  of  his  heart  and  took  the  measure 
of  his  littleness.  But  one  day  a  wandering  clerk,  to  whom 
he  chanced  to  give  a  night's  shelter,  explained  to  him  that, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  most  learned  doctors  in  theology, 
the  stars  were  inhabited  by  the  spirits  of  the  blessed,  and 
'[7] 


THE   HERMIT 

this  thought  brought  great  solace  to  the  Hermit.  Even  on 
winter  nights,  when  the  eagles  screamed  among  the  peaks, 
and  he  heard  the  long  howl  of  wolves  about  the  sheep- 
cotes  in  the  valley,  he  no  longer  felt  any  fear,  but  thought 
of  those  sounds  as  representing  the  evil  voices  of  the  world, 
and  hugged  himself  in  the  seclusion  of  his  cave.  Some 
times,  to  keep  himself  awake,  he  composed  lauds  in  honour 
of  Christ  and  the  saints,  and  they  seemed  to  him  so  pleas 
ant  that  he  feared  to  forget  them,  so  after  much  debate 
with  himself  he  decided  to  ask  a  friendly  priest,  who 
sometimes  visited  him,  to  write  them  down;  and  the  priest 
wrote  them  on  comely  sheepskin,  which  the  Hermit  dried 
and  prepared  with  his  own  hands.  When  the  Hermit  saw 
them  written  they  appeared  to  him  so  beautiful  that  he 
feared  to  commit  the  sin  of  vanity  if  he  looked  at  them  too 
often,  so  he  hid  them  between  two  smooth  stones  in  his 
cave,  and  vowed  that  he  would  take  them  out  only  once  in 
the  year,  at  Easter,  when  our  Lord  has  risen  and  it  is 
meet  that  Christians  should  rejoice.  And  this  vow  he  faith 
fully  kept;  but,  alas,  when  Easter  drew  near,  he  found  he 
was  looking  forward  to  the  blessed  festival  less  because  of 
our  Lord's  rising  than  because  he  should  then  be  able  to 
read  his  pleasant  lauds  written  on  fair  sheepskin;  and 
thereupon  he  took  a  vow  that  he  would  not  look  on  the 
lauds  till  he  lay  dying. 

So  the  Hermit,  for  many  years,  lived  to  the  glory  of 
God  and  in  great  peace  of  mind. 
[8] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 
H 

E  day  he  resolved  to  set  forth  on  a  visit  to  the  Saint 
of  the  Rock,  who  lived  on  the  other  side  of  the  moun 
tains.  Travellers  had  brought  the  Hermit  report  of  this 
solitary,  how  he  lived  in  holiness  and  austerity  in  a 
desert  place  among  the  hills,  where  snow  lay  all  winter, 
and  in  summer  the  sun  beat  down  cruelly.  The  Saint,  it 
appeared,  had  vowed  that  he  would  withdraw  from  the 
world  to  a  spot  where  there  was  neither  shade  nor  water, 
lest  he  should  be  tempted  to  take  his  ease  and  think  less 
continually  upon  his  Maker;  but  wherever  he  went  he 
found  a  spreading  tree  or  a  gushing  fountain,  till  at  last 
he  climbed  to  the  bare  heights  where  nothing  grows,  and 
where  the  only  water  comes  from  the  melting  of  the  snow 
in  spring.  Here  he  found  a  tall  rock  rising  from  the  ground, 
and  in  it  he.  scooped  a  hollow  with  his  own  hands,  labour 
ing  for  five  years  and  wearing  his  fingers  to  the  bone.  Then 
he  seated  himself  in  the  hollow,  which  faced  the  west,  so 
that  in  winter  he  should  have  small  warmth  of  the  sun  and 
in  summer  be  consumed  by  it;  and  there  he  had  sat  with 
out  moving  for  years  beyond  number. 

The  Hermit  was  greatly  drawn  by  the  tale  of  such  austeri- 
ties,which  in  his  humility  he  did  not  dream  of  emulating,  but 
desired,  for  his  soul's  good,  to  contemplate  and  praise;  so 
one  day  he  bound  sandals  to  his  feet,  cut  an  alder  staff 
from  the  stream,  and  set  out  to  visit  the  Saint  of  the  Rock. 
[9] 


THE  HERMIT 

It  was  the  pleasant  season  when  seeds  are  shooting 
and  the  bud  is  on  the  tree.  The  Hermit  was  troubled 
at  the  thought  of  leaving  his  plants  without  water,  but  he 
could  not  travel  in  winter  by  reason  of  the  snows,  and  in 
summer  he  feared  the  garden  would  suffer  even  more  from 
his  absence.  So  he  set  out,  praying  that  rain  might  fall 
while  he  was  away,  and  hoping  to  return  again  in  five 
days.  The  peasants  in  the  fields  left  their  work  to 
ask  his  blessing;  and  they  would  even  have  followed 
him  in  great  numbers  had  he  not  told  them  that  he  was 
bound  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Saint  of  the  Rock,  and  that 
it  behooved  him  to  go  alone,  as  one  solitary  seeking  an 
other.  So  they  respected  his  wish,  and  he  went  on  and 
entered  the  forest.  In  the  forest  he  walked  for  two  days 
and  slept  for  two  nights.  He  heard  the  wolves  crying, 
and  foxes  rustling  in  the  covert,  and  once,  at  twilight,  a 
shaggy  brown  man  peered  at  him  through  the  leaves  and 
galloped  away  with  a  soft  padding  of  hoofs;  but  the  Hermit 
feared  neither  wild  beasts  nor  evil-doers,  nor  even  the 
fauns  and  satyrs  who  linger  in  unhallowed  forest  depths 
where  the  Cross  has  not  been  raised;  for  he  said:  "If  I 
die,  I  die  to  the  glory  of  God,  and  if  I  live,  it  must  be  to 
the  same  end."  Only  he  felt  a  secret  pang  at  the  thought 
that  he  might  die  without  seeing  his  lauds  again.  But  the 
third  day,  without  misadventure,  he  came  out  on  another 
valley. 

Then  he  began  to  climb  the  mountain,  first  through 
[10] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

brown  woods  of  beech  and  oak,  then  through  pine  and 
broom,  and  then  across  red  stony  ledges  where  only  a 
pinched  growth  of  lentisk  and  briar  spread  over  the 
bald  rock.  By  this  time  he  thought  to  have  reached  his 
goal,  but  for  two  more  days  he  fared  on  through  the 
same  scene,  the  sky  close  over  him  and  the  green  earth 
receding  far  below.  Sometimes  for  hours  he  saw  only 
the  red  glistering  slopes  tufted  with  thin  bushes,  and 
the  hard  blue  heaven  so  close  that  it  seemed  his  hand 
could  touch  it;  then  at  a  turn  of  the  path  the  rocks  rolled 
apart,  the  eye  plunged  down  a  long  pine-clad  defile,  and 
beyond  it  the  forest  flowed  away  to  a  plain  shining  with 
cities  and  another  mountain-range  many  days'  journey 
away.  To  some  eyes  this  would  have  been  a  terrible 
spectacle,  reminding  the  wayfarer  of  his  remoteness  from 
his  kind,  and  of  the  perils  which  lurk  in  waste  places 
and  the  weakness  of  man  against  them;  but  the  Hermit 
was  so  mated  to  solitude,  and  felt  such  love  for  all 
created  things,  that  to  him  the  bare  rocks  sang  of  their 
Maker  and  the  vast  distance  bore  witness  to  His  greatness. 
So  His  servant  journeyed  on  unafraid. 

But  one  morning,  after  a  long  climb  over  steep  and 
difficult  slopes,  the  wayfarer  halted  at  a  bend  of  the  way; 
for  below  him  was  no  plain  shining  with  cities,  but  a  bare 
expanse  of  shaken  silver  that  reached  to  the  rim  of  the 
world;  and  the  Hermit  knew  it  was  the  sea.  Fear  seized 
him  then,  for  it  was  terrible  to  see  that  great  plain  move 


THE   HERMIT 

like  a  heaving  bosom,  and,  as  he  looked  on  it,  the  earth 
seemed  also  to  heave  beneath  him.  But  presently  he  re 
membered  how  Christ  had  walked  the  waves,  and  how 
even  Saint  Mary  of  Egypt,  a  great  sinner,  had  crossed  the 
waters  of  Jordan  dry-shod  to  receive  the  Sacrament  from 
the  Abbot  Zosimus;  and  then  the  Hermit's  heart  grew  still, 
and  he  sang  as  he  went  down  the  mountain:  "The  sea 
shall  praise  Thee,  O  Lord." 

All  day  he  kept  seeing  it  and  then  losing  it;  but  toward 
night  he  came  to  a  cleft  of  the  hills,  and  lay  down  in  a  pine- 
wood  to  sleep.  He  had  now  been  six  days  gone,  and  once 
and  again  he  thought  anxiously  of  his  herbs;  but  he  said 
to  himself:  "What  though  my  garden  perish,  if  I  see  a 
holy  man  face  to  face  and  praise  God  in  his  company?" 
So  he  was  never  long  cast  down. 

Before  daylight  he  was  afoot  under  the  stars;  and  leav 
ing  the  wood  where  he  had  slept,  began  climbing  the  face 
of  a  tall  cliff,  where  he  had  to  clutch  the  jutting  ledges  with 
his  hands,  and  with  every  step  he  gained,  a  rock  seemed 
thrust  forth  to  hurl  him  back.  So,  footsore  and  bleeding, 
he  reached  a  high  stony  plain  as  the  sun  dropped  to  the 
sea;  and  in  the  red  light  he  saw  a  hollow  rock,  and  the  Saint 
sitting  in  the  hollow. 

The  Hermit  fell  on  his  knees,  praising  God;  then  he 
rose  and  ran  across  the  plain  to  the  rock.  As  he  drew  near 
he  saw  that  the  Saint  was  a  very  old  man,  clad  in  goat 
skin,  with  a  long  white  beard.  He  sat  motionless,  his  hands 
[12] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

on  his  knees,  and  two  red  eye-sockets  turned  to  the  sunset. 
Near  him  was  a  young  boy  in  skins  who  brushed  the  flies 
from  his  face;  but  they  always  came  back,  and  settled  on 
the  rheum  from  his  eyes. 

He  did  not  appear  to  hear  or  see  the  approach  of  the 
Hermit,  but  sat  quite  still  till  the  boy  said:  "Father,  here 
is  a  pilgrim." 

Then  he  lifted  up  his  voice  and  asked  angrily  who  was 
there  and  what  the  stranger  sought. 

The  Hermit  answered:  "  Father,  the  report  of  your  holy 
practices  came  to  me  a  long  way  off,  and  being  myself  a 
solitary,  though  not  worthy  to  be  named  with  you  for  god 
liness,  it  seemed  fitting  that  I  should  cross  the  mountains 
to  visit  you,  that  we  might  sit  together  and  speak  in  praise 
of  solitude." 

The  Saint  replied:  "You  fool,  how  can  two  sit  together 
and  praise  solitude,  since  by  so  doing  they  put  an  end  to  the 
thing  they  praise?" 

The  Hermit,  at  that,  was  sorely  abashed,  for  he  had 
thought  his  speech  out  on  the  way,  reciting  it  many  times 
over;  and  now  it  appeared  to  him  vainer  than  the  crack 
ling  of  thorns  under  a  pot. 

Nevertheless  he  took  heart  and  said:  "True,  Father; 
but  may  not  two  sinners  sit  together  and  praise  Christ, 
who  has  taught  them  the  blessings  of  solitude?" 

But  the  other  only  answered:  "If  you  had  really  learned 
the  blessings  of  solitude  you  would  not  squander  them 
[13] 


THE   HERMIT 

in  idle  wandering."  And,  the  Hermit  not  knowing  how  to 
reply,  he  said  again:  "If  two  sinners  meet  they  can  best 
praise  Christ  by  going  each  his  own  way  in  silence." 

After  that  he  shut  his  lips  and  continued  motionless 
while  the  boy  brushed  the  flies  from  his  eye-sockets;  but 
the  Hermit's  heart  sank,  and  for  the  first  time  he  felt  the 
weariness  of  the  way  he  had  travelled,  and  the  great  dis 
tance  dividing  him  from  home. 

He  had  meant  to  take  counsel  with  the  Saint  concerning 
his  lauds,  and  whether  he  ought  to  destroy  them;  but  now 
he  had  no  heart  to  say  more,  and  turning  away  he  began 
to  go  down  the  mountain.  Presently  he  heard  steps  run 
ning  at  his  back,  and  the  boy  came  up  and  pressed  a 
honey-comb  on  him. 

"You  have  come  a  long  way  and  must  be  hungry," 
he  said;  but  before  the  Hermit  could  thank  him  he 
hastened  back  to  his  task.  So  the  Hermit  crept  down  the 
mountain  till  he  reached  the  wood  where  he  had  slept  be 
fore;  and  there  he  made  his  bed  again,  but  he  had  no  mind 
to  eat  before  sleeping,  for  his  heart  hungered  more  than 
his  body;  and  his  tears  made  the  honey-comb  bitter. 


[14] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

HI 

N  the  fourteenth  day  he  came  to  his  own  valley  and 
saw  the  walls  of  his  native  town  against  the  sky.  He 
was  footsore  and  heavy  of  heart,  for  his  long  pilgrimage 
had  brought  him  only  weariness  and  humiliation,  and  as 
no  drop  of  rain  had  fallen  he  knew  that  his  garden  must 
have  perished.  So  he  climbed  the  cliff  heavily  and  reached 
his  cave  at  the  angelus. 

But  there  a  wonder  awaited  him.  For  though  the  scant 
earth  of  the  hillside  was  parched  and  crumbling,  his  gar 
den-soil  shone  with  moisture,  and  his  plants  had  shot  up, 
fresh  and  glistening,  to  a  height  they  had  never  attained. 
More  wonderful  still,  the  tendrils  of  the  gourd  had  been 
trained  about  his  door;  and  kneeling  down  he  saw  that  the 
earth  had  been  loosened  between  the  rows  of  sprouting 
vegetables,  and  that  every  leaf  dripped  as  though  the  rain 
had  but  newly  ceased.  Then  it  appeared  to  the  Hermit 
that  he  beheld  a  miracle,  but  doubting  his  own  deserts  he 
refused  to  believe  himself  worthy,  and  went  within  doors 
to  ponder  on  what  had  befallen  him.  And  on  his  bed  of 
rushes  he  saw  a  young  woman  sleeping,  clad  in  an  out 
landish  garment  with  strange  amulets  about  her  neck. 

The  sight  was  full  of  fear  to  the  Hermit,  for  he  re 
called  how  often  the  demon,  in  tempting  the  Desert  Fathers, 
had  taken  the  form  of  a  woman ;  but  he  reflected  that,  since 
there  was  nothing  pleasing  to  him  in  the  sight  of  this 
[15] 


THE  HERMIT 

female,  who  was  brown  as  a  nut  and  lean  with  wayfaring, 
he  ran  no  great  danger  in  looking  at  her.  At  first  he  took 
her  for  a  wandering  Egyptian,  but  as  he  looked  he  per 
ceived,  among  the  heathen  charms,  an  Agnus  Dei  in  her 
bosom;  and  this  so  surprised  him  that  he  bent  over  and 
called  on  her  to  wake. 

She  sprang  up  with  a  start,  but  seeing  the  Hermit's 
gown  and  staff,  and  his  face  above  her,  lay  quiet  and  said : 
"I  have  watered  your  garden  daily  in  return  for  the  beans 
and  oil  that  I  took  from  your  store." 

"Who  are  you,  and  how  come  you  here?"  asked  the 
Hermit. 

She  said:  "I  am  a  wild  woman  and  live  in  the  woods." 

And  when  he  pressed  her  again  to  tell  him  why  she 
had  sought  shelter  in  his  cave,  she  said  that  the  land  to 
the  south,  whence  she  came,  was  full  of  armed  companies 
and  bands  of  marauders,  and  that  great  license  and  blood 
shed  prevailed  there;  and  this  the  Hermit  knew  to  be  true, 
for  he  had  heard  of  it  on  his  homeward  journey.  The 
Wild  Woman  went  on  to  tell  him  that  she  had  been  hunted 
through  the  woods  like  an  animal  by  a  band  of  drunken 
men-at-arms,  Landsknechts  from  the  north  by  their  bar 
barous  dress  and  speech,  and  at  length,  starving  and  spent, 
had  come  on  his  cave  and  hidden  herself  from  her  pur 
suers.  "  For,"  she  said,  "  I  fear  neither  wild  beasts  nor  the 
woodland  people,  charcoal  burners,  Egyptians,  wandering 
minstrels  or  chapmen;  even  the  highway  robbers  do  not 
[16] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

touch  me,  because  I  am  poor  and  brown;  but  these  armed 
men  flown  with  wine  are  more  terrible  than  wolves  and 
tigers." 

And  the  Hermit's  heart  melted,  for  he  thought  of  his 
little  sister  lying  with  her  throat  slit  across  the  altar,  and 
of  the  scenes  of  blood  and  rapine  from  which  he  had  fled 
into  the  wilderness.  So  he  said  to  the  stranger  that  it  was 
not  fitting  he  should  house  her  in  his  cave,  but  that  he 
would  send  a  messenger  to  the  town,  and  beg  a  pious 
woman  there  to  give  her  lodging  and  work  in  her  house 
hold.  "For,"  said  he,  "I  perceive  by  the  blessed  image 
about  your  neck  that  you  are  not  a  heathen  wilding,  but 
a  child  of  Christ,  though  so  far  astray  in  the  desert." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  am  a  Christian,  and  know  as  many 
prayers  as  you;  but  I  will  never  set  foot  in  city  walls  again, 
lest  I  be  caught  and  put  back  into  the  convent." 

"What,"  cried  the  Hermit  with  a  start,  "you  are  a  runa 
gate  nun  ?  "  And  he  crossed  himself,  and  again  thought  of 
the  demon. 

She  smiled  and  said:  "It  is  true  I  was  once  a  clois 
tered  woman,  but  I  will  never  willingly  be  one  again.  Now 
drive  me  forth  if  you  like;  but  I  cannot  go  far,  for  I  have 
a  wounded  foot,  which  I  got  in  climbing  the  cliff  with 
water  for  your  garden."  And  she  pointed  to  a  cut  in 
her  foot. 

At  that,  for  all  his  fear,  the  Hermit  was  moved  to  pity, 
and  washed  the- cut  and  bound  it  up;  and  as  he  did  so  he 
[17] 


THE   HERMIT 

bethought  him  that  perhaps  his  strange  visitor  had  been 
sent  to  him  not  for  his  soul's  undoing  but  for  her  own  sal 
vation.  And  from  that  hour  he  yearned  to  save  her. 

But  it  was  not  fitting  that  she  should  remain  in  his  cave; 
so,  having  given  her  water  to  drink  and  a  handful  of  lentils, 
he  raised  her  up,  and  putting  his  staff  in  her  hand  guided 
her  to  a  hollow  not  far  off  in  the  face  of  the  cliff.  And  while 
he  was  doing  this  he  heard  the  sunset  bells  across  the 
valley,  and  set  about  reciting  the  Angelus  Domini  nunti- 
avit  Marioe;  and  she  joined  in  piously,  her  hands  folded, 
not  missing  a  word. 

Nevertheless  the  thought  of  her  wickedness  weighed  on 
him,  and  the  next  day  when  he  went  to  carry  her  food  he 
asked  her  to  tell  him  how  it  came  about  that  she  had  fallen 
into  such  abominable  sin.  And  this  is  the  story  she  told. 


IV 


T  WAS  born  (said  she)  in  the  north  country,  where  the 
-^  winters  are  long  and  cold,  where  snow  sometimes  falls 
in  the  valleys,  and  the  high  mountains  for  months  are 
white  with  it.  My  father's  castle  is  in  a  tall  green  wood, 
where  the  winds  always  rustle,  and  a  cold  river  runs  down 
from  the  ice-gorges.  South  of  us  was  the  wide  plain, 
glowing  with  heat,  but  above  us  were  stony  passes 
where  eagles  nest  and  the  storms  howl;  in  winter  fires 
roared  in  our  chimneys,  and  even  in  summer  there  was 
[181 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

always  a  cool  air  off  the  gorges.  But  when  I  was  a  child 
my  mother  went  southward  in  the  great  Empress's  train 
and  I  went  with  her.  We  travelled  many  days,  across  plains 
and  mountains,  and  saw  Rome,  where  the  Pope  lives  in  a 
golden  palace,  and  many  other  cities,  till  we  came  to  the. 
great  Emperor's  court.  There  for  two  years  or  more  we 
lived  in  pomp  and  merriment,  for  it  was  a  wonderful  court, 
full  of  mimes,  magicians,  philosophers  and  poets;  and  the 
Empress's  ladies  spent  their  days  in  mirth  and  music, 
dressed  in  light  silken  garments,  walking  in  gardens  of 
roses,  and  bathing  in  a  cool  marble  tank,  while  the 
Emperor's  eunuchs  guarded  the  approach  to  the  gardens. 
Oh,  those  baths  in  the  marble  tank,  my  Father!  I  used  to 
lie  awake  through  the  whole  hot  southern  night,  and  think 
of  that  plunge  at  sunrise  under  the  last  stars.  For  we  were 
in  a  burning  country,  and  I  pined  for  the  tall  green  woods 
and  the  cold  stream  of  my  father's  valley;  and  when  I  had 
cooled  my  body  in  the  tank  I  lay  all  day  in  the  scant 
cypress  shade  and  dreamed  of  my  next  bath. 

My  mother  pined  for  the  coolness  till  she  died;  then  the 
Empress  put  me  in  a  convent  and  I  was  forgotten.  The 
convent  was  on  the  side  of  a  bare  yellow  hill,  where  bees 
made  a  hot  buzzing  in  the  thyme.  Below  was  the  sea, 
blazing  with  a  million  shafts  of  light;  and  overhead  a  blind 
ing  sky,  which  reflected  the  sun's  glitter  like  a  huge  baldric 
of  steel.  Now  the  convent  was  built  on  the  site  of  an  old 
pleasure-house  which  a  holy  princess  had  given  to  our 
[19] 


THE   HERMIT 

Order;  and  a  part  of  the  house  was  left  standing,  with  its 
court  and  garden.  The  nuns  had  built  all  about  the  garden; 
but  they  left  the  cypresses  in  the  middle,  and  the  long 
marble  tank  where  the  Princess  and  her  ladies  had  bathed. 
The  tank,  however,  as  you  may  conceive,  was  no  longer 
used  as  a  bath,  for  the  washing  of  the  body  is  an  indulgence 
forbidden  to  cloistered  virgins;  and  our  Abbess,  who  was 
famed  for  her  austerities,  boasted  that,  like  holy  Sylvia 
the  nun,  she  never  touched  water  save  to  bathe  her  finger 
tips  before  receiving  the  Sacrament.  With  such  an  example 
before  them,  the  nuns  were  obliged  to  conform  to  the  same 
pious  rule,  and  many,  having  been  bred  in  the  convent 
from  infancy,  regarded  all  ablutions  with  horror,  and  felt 
no  temptation  to  cleanse  the  filth  from  their  flesh;  but  I, 
who  had  bathed  daily,  had  the  freshness  of  water  in  my 
veins,  and  perished  slowly  for  want  of  it,  like  your  garden 
herbs  in  a  drought. 

My  cell  did  not  look  on  the  garden,  but  on  the  steep 
mule-path  leading  up  the  cliff,  where  all  day  long  the  sun 
beat  as  with  flails  of  fire,  and  I  saw  the  sweating  peasants 
toil  up  and  down  behind  their  thirsty  asses,  and  the  beg 
gars  whining  and  scraping  their  sores.  Oh,  how  I  hated  to 
look  out  on  that  burning  world !  I  used  to  turn  away  from 
it,  sick  with  disgust,  and  lying  on  my  hard  bed,  stare  up 
by  the  hour  at  the  ceiling  of  my  cell.  But  flies  crawled  in 
hundreds  on  the  ceiling,  and  the  hot  noise  they  made  was 
worse  than  the  glare.  Sometimes,  at  an  hour  when  I  knew 
[20] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

myself  unobserved,  I  tore  off  my  stifling  gown,  and  hung 
it  over  the  grated  window,  that  I  might  no  longer  see  the 
shaft  of  sunlight  lying  across  my  cell,  and  the  dust  dancing 
in  it  like  fat  in  the  fire.  But  the  darkness  choked  me,  and 
I  struggled  for  breath  as  though  I  lay  at  the  bottom  of  a 
pit;  so  that  at  last  I  would  spring  up,  and  dragging  down 
the  dress,  fling  myself  on  my  knees  before  the  Cross,  and 
entreat  our  Lord  to  give  me  the  gift  of  holiness,  that  I 
might  escape  the  everlasting  fires  of  hell,  of  which  this  heat 
was  a  foretaste.  For  if  I  could  not  endure  the  scorching 
of  a  summer's  day,  with  what  constancy  could  I  meet  the 
thought  of  the  flame  that  dieth  not  ? 

This  longing  to  escape  the  heat  of  hell  made  me  apply 
myself  to  a  devouter  way  of  living,  and  I  reflected  that  if 
my  bodily  distress  were  somewhat  eased  I  should  be  able 
to  throw  myself  with  greater  zeal  into  the  practice  of  vigils 
and  austerities.  And  at  length,  having  set  forth  to  the 
Abbess  that  the  sultry  air  of  my  cell  induced  in  me  a 
grievous  heaviness  of  sleep,  I  prevailed  on  her  to  lodge  me 
in  that  part  of  the  building  which  overlooked  the  garden. 

For  a  few  days  I  was  happy,  for  instead  of  the  dusty 
mountainside,  and  the  sight  of  the  sweating  peasants 
and  their  asses,  I  looked  out  on  dark  cypresses  and  rows 
of  budding  vegetables.  But  presently  I  found  I  had  not 
bettered  myself.  For  with  the  approach  of  midsummer  the 
garden,  being  all  enclosed  with  buildings,  grew  as  stifling 
as  my  cell.  All  the  green  things  in  it  withered  and  dried 
[21] 


THE   HERMIT 

off,  leaving  trenches  of  bare  red  earth,  across  which  the 
cypresses  cast  strips  of  shade  too  narrow  to  cool  the  aching 
heads  of  the  nuns;  and  I  began  to  think  sorrowfully  of  my 
former  cell,  where  now  and  then  there  came  a  sea-breeze, 
hot  and  languid,  yet  alive,  and  where  at  least  I  could  look 
out  on  the  sea.  But  this  was  not  the  worst;  for  when  the 
dog-days  came  I  found  that  the  sun,  at  a  certain  hour,  cast 
on  the  ceiling  of  my  cell  the  reflection  of  the  ripples  on  the 
garden-tank;  and  to  say  how  I  suffered  from  this  sight  is 
not  within  the  power  of  speech.  It  was  indeed  agony  to 
watch  the  clear  water  rippling  and  washing  above  my 
head,  yet  feel  no  solace  of  it  on  my  limbs :  as  though  I  had 
been  a  senseless  brazen  image  lying  at  the  bottom  of  a 
well.  But  the  image,  if  it  felt  no  refreshment,  would  have 
suffered  no  torture;  whereas  every  vein  of  my  body  was 
a  mouth  of  Dives  praying  for  water.  Oh,  Father,  how 
shall  I  tell  you  the  grievous  pains  that  I  endured  ?  Some 
times  I  so  feared  the  sight  of  the  mocking  ripples  over 
head  that  I  hid  my  eyes  from  their  approach,  lying  face 
down  on  my  bed  till  I  knew  that  they  were  gone;  yet  on 
cloudy  days,  when  they  did  not  come,  the  heat  was  even 
worse  to  bear. 

By  day  I  hardly  dared  trust  myself  in  the  garden,  for 
the  nuns  walked  there,  and  one  fiery  noon  they  found  me 
hanging  so  close  above  the  tank  that  they  snatched  me 
away,  crying  out  that  I  had  tried  to  destroy  myself.  The 
scandal  of  this  reaching  the  Abbess,  she  sent  for  me  to 


AND   THE    WILD   WOMAN 

know  what  demon  had  beset  me;  and  when  I  wept  and  said, 
the  longing  to  bathe  my  burning  body,  she  broke  into 
anger  and  cried  out:  "Do  you  not  know  that  this  is  a  sin 
well-nigh  as  grave  as  the  other,  and  condemned  by  all  the 
greatest  saints?  For  a  nun  may  be  tempted  to  take  her 
life  through  excess  of  self-scrutiny  and  despair  of  her  own 
worthiness;  but  this  desire  to  indulge  the  despicable  body 
is  one  of  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  to  be  classed  with  concupis 
cence  and  adultery."  And  she  ordered  me  to  sleep  every 
night  for  a  month  in  my  heavy  gown,  with  a  veil  upon  my 
face. 

Now,  Father,  I  believe  it  was  this  penance  that  drove 
me  to  sin.  For  we  were  in  the  dog-days,  and  it  was  more 
than  flesh  could  bear.  And  on  the  third  night,  after  the 
portress  had  passed,  and  the  lights  were  out,  I  rose  and 
flung  off  my  veil  and  gown,  and  knelt  in  my  window  faint 
ing.  There  was  no  moon,  but  the  sky  was  full  of  stars.  At 
first  the  garden  was  all  blackness;  but  as  I  looked  I  saw 
a  faint  twinkle  between  the  cypress-trunks,  and  I  knew  it 
was  the  starlight  on  the  tank.  The  water!  The  water!  It 
was  there  close  to  me — only  a  few  bolts  and  bars  were 
between  us.  ... 

The  portress  was  a  heavy  sleeper,  and  I  knew  where 
she  hung  her  keys.  I  stole  thither,  seized  the  keys  and  crept 
barefoot  down  the  long  corridor.  The  bolts  of  the  cloister- 
door  were  stiff  and  heavy,  and  I  dragged  at  them  till 
my  wrists  were  bursting.  Then  I  turned  the  key  and  it 
[23] 


THE   HERMIT 

cried  out  in  the  ward.  I  stood  still,  my  whole  body  beating 
with  fear  lest  the  hinges  too  should  have  a  voice — but  no 
one  stirred,  and  I  pushed  open  the  door  and  slipped  out. 
The  garden  was  as  airless  as  a  pit,  but  at  least  I  could 
stretch  my  arms  in  it;  and,  oh,  my  Father,  the  sweetness 
of  the  stars!  Sharp  stones  cut  my  feet  as  I  ran,  but 
I  thought  of  the  joy  of  bathing  them  in  the  tank,  and 
that  made  the  wounds  sweet  to  me. .  . .  My  Father,  I 
have  heard  of  the  temptations  which  assailed  the  holy 
Solitaries  of  the  desert,  flattering  the  reluctant  flesh  be 
yond  resistance;  but  none,  I  think,  could  have  surpassed 
in  ecstasy  that  first  touch  of  the  water  on  my  limbs.  To 
prolong  the  joy  I  let  myself  slip  in  slowly,  resting  my  hands 
on  the  edge  of  the  tank,  and  smiling  to  see  my  body,  as 
I  lowered  it,  break  up  the  shining  black  surface  and  shat 
ter  the  star-beams  into  splinters.  And  the  water,  my 
Father,  seemed  to  crave  me  as  I  craved  it.  Its  ripples  rose 
about  me,  first  in  furtive  touches,  then  in  a  long  embrace 
that  clung  and  drew  me  down;  till  at  length  they  lay  like 
kisses  on  my  lips.  It  was  no  frank  comrade  like  the 
mountain  pools  of  my  childhood,  but  a  secret  playmate 
compassionating  my  pains  and  soothing  them  with  noise 
less  hands.  From  the  first  I  thought  of  it  as  an  accomplice 
— its  whisper  seemed  to.  promise  me  secrecy  if  I  would 
promise  it  love.  And  I  went  back  and  back  to  it,  my  Father; 
all  day  I  lived  in  the  thought  of  it;  each  night  I  stole  to  it 
with  fresh  thirst.  .  . . 

[24] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

But  at  length  the  old  portress  died,  and  a  young  lay- 
sister  took  her  place.  She  was  a  light  sleeper,  and  keen- 
eared;  and  I  knew  the  danger  of  venturing  to  her  cell. 
I  knew  the  danger,  but  when  darkness  came  I  felt  the 
water  drawing  me.  The  first  night  I  fought  and  held  out; 
but  the  second  I  crept  to  her  door.  She  made  no  motion 
when  I  entered,  but  rose  up  secretly  and  stole  after  me; 
and  the  next  night  she  warned  the  Abbess,  and  the  two 
came  on  me  by  the  tank. 

I  was  punished  with  terrible  penances:  fasting,  scourg 
ing,  imprisonment,  and  the  privation  of  drinking  water; 
for  the  Abbess  stood  amazed  at  the  obduracy  of  my  sin, 
and  was  resolved  to  make  me  an  example.  For  a  month 
I  endured  the  pains  of  hell;  then  one  night  the  Saracen 
pirates  fell  on  our  convent.  On  a  sudden  the  darkness 
was  full  of  flames  and  blood;  but  while  the  other  nuns 
ran  hither  and  thither,  clinging  to  the  Abbess  or  shriek 
ing  on  the  steps  of  the  altar,  I  slipped  through  an  un- 
watched  postern  and  made  my  way  to  the  hills.  The 
next  day  the  Emperor's  soldiery  descended  on  the  carous 
ing  heathen,  slew  them  and  burned  their  vessels  on  the 
beach;  the  Abbess  and  nuns  were  rescued,  the  convent 
walls  rebuilt,  and  peace  was  restored  to  the  holy  precincts. 
All  this  I  heard  from  a  shepherdess  of  the  hills,  who  found 
me  in  my  hiding,  and  brought  me  honeycomb  and  water. 
In  her  simplicity  she  offered  to  lead  me  home  to  the  con 
vent;  but  while  she  slept  I  laid  off  my  wimple  and  scapular, 
[25] 


THE   HERMIT 

and  stealing  her  cloak  fled  away.  And  since  then  I  have 
wandered  alone  over  the  face  of  the  world,  living  in  woods 
and  desert  places,  often  hungry,  often  cold  and  sometimes 
fearful;  yet  resigned  to  any  hardship,  and  with  a  front  for 
any  peril,  if  only  I  may  sleep  under  the  free  heaven  and 
wash  the  dust  from  my  body  in  cool  water. 


^T^HE  Hermit,  as  may  be  supposed,  was  much  per- 
-•-  turbed  by  this  story,  and  dismayed  that  -such  sin- 
fulness  should  cross  his  path.  His  first  motion  was  to  drive 
the  woman  forth,  for  he  knew  the  heinousness  of  the  crav 
ing  for  water,  and  how  Saint  Jerome,  Saint  Augustine 
and  other  holy  doctors  have  taught  that  they  who  \vould 
purify  the  soul  must  not  be  distraught  by  the  vain  cares 
of  bodily  cleanliness;  yet,  remembering  the  desire  that 
drew  him  to  his  lauds,  he  dared  not  judge  his  sister's 
fault  too  harshly. 

Moreover  he  was  moved  by  the  Wild  Woman's  story 
of  the  hardships  she  had  suffered,  and  the  godless  com 
pany  she  had  been  driven  to  keep — Egyptians,  jugglers, 
outlaws  and  even  sorcerers,  who  are  masters  of  the  pa 
gan  lore  of  the  East,  and  still  practice  their  rites  among 
the  simple  folk  of  the  hills.  Yet  she  would  not  have  him 
think  wholly  ill  of  this  vagrant  people,  from  whom  she  had 
often  received  food  and  comfort;  and  her  worst  danger,  as 
[26] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

he  learned  with  shame,  had  come  from  the  giroraghi  or 
wandering  monks,  who  are  the  scourge  and  shame 
of  Christendom;  carrying  their  ribald  idleness  from  one 
monastery  to  another,  and  leaving  on  their  way  a  trail  of 
thieving,  revelry  and  worse.  Once  or  twice  the  Wild 
Woman  had  nearly  fallen  into  their  hands;  but  had  been 
saved  by  her  own  quick  wit  and  skill  in  woodcraft.  Once, 
so  she  assured  the  Hermit,  she  had  found  refuge  writh  a 
faun  and  his  female,  wrho  fed  and  sheltered  her  in  their 
cave,  where  she  slept  on  a  bed  of  leaves  with  their  shaggy 
nurslings;  and  in  this  cave  she  had  seen  a  stock  or  idol  of 
wood,  extremely  seamed  and  ancient,  before  which  the 
wood-creatures,  when  they  thought  she  slept,  laid  garlands 
and  the  wTild  bees'  honeycomb. 

She  told  him  also  of  a  hill-village  of  weavers,  where  she 
lived  many  weeks,  and  learned  to  ply  their  trade  in  return 
for  her  lodging;  and  where  wayfaring  men  in  the  guise  of 
cobblers,  charcoal-burners  or  goatherds  came  at  mid 
night  and  taught  strange  doctrines  in  the  hovels.  What 
they  taught  she  could  not  clearly  tell,  save  that  they  be 
lieved  each  soul  could  commune  directly  with  its  Maker, 
without  need  of  priest  or  intercessor;  and  she  had  heard 
from  some  of  their  disciples  that  there  are  two  Gods,  one 
of  good  and  one  of  evil,  and  that  the  God  of  evil  has  his 
throne  in  the  Pope's  palace  in  Rome.  But  in  spite  of  these 
dark  teachings  they  were  a  mild  and  merciful  folk,  full  of 
loving-kindness  toward  poor  persons  and  wayfarers;  so 


THE   HERMIT 

that  she  grieved  for  them  when  one  day  a  Dominican  monk 
appeared  with  a  company  of  soldiers,  seizing  some  of  the 
weavers  and  dragging  them  to  prison,  while  others,  with 
their  wives  and  babes,  fled  to  the  winter  woods.  She  fled 
with  them,  fearing  to  be  charged  with  their  heresy,  and  for 
months  they  lay  hid  in  desert  places,  the  older  and  weaker, 
when  they  fell  sick  from  want  and  exposure,  being  de 
voutly  ministered  to  by  their  brethren,  and  dying  in  the 
sure  faith  of  heaven. 

All  this  she  related  modestly  and  simply,  not  as  one 
who  joys  in  a  godless  life,  but  as  having  been  drawn  into 
it  through  misadventure;  and  she  told  the  Hermit  that 
when  she  heard  the  sound  of  church  bells  she  never  failed 
to  say  an  Ave  or  a  Pater;  and  that  often,  as  she  lay  in  the 
darkness  of  the  forest,  she  had  hushed  her  fears  by  re 
citing  the  versicles  from  the  Evening  Hour: 

Keep  us,  O  Lord,  as  the  apple  of  the  eye, 
Protect  us  under  the  shadow  of  Thy  wings. 

The  wound  in  her  foot  healed  slowly;  and  the  Hermit, 
while  it  was  mending,  repaired  daily  to  her  cave,  reason 
ing  with  her  in  love  and  charity,  and  exhorting  her  to  re 
turn  to  the  cloister.  But  this  she  still  refused  to  do; 
and  fearing  lest  she  attempt  to  fly  before  her  foot  was 
healed,  and  so  expose  herself  to  hunger  and  ill-usage,  he 
promised  not  to  betray  her  presence,  or  to  take  any  meas 
ures  toward  restoring  her  to  her  Order. 

He  began  indeed  to  doubt  whether  she  had  any  calling 
[28] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

to  the  life  enclosed;  yet  her  innocency  of  mind  made 
him  feel  that  she  might  be  won  back  to  holy  living  if 
only  her  freedom  were  assured.  So  after  many  inward 
struggles  (since  his  promise  forbade  his  taking  counsel 
with  any  concerning  her)  he  resolved  to  let  her  stay  in 
the  cave  till  some  light  should  come  to  him.  And  one 
day,  visiting  her  about  the  hour  of  Nones  (for  it  be 
came  his  pious  habit  to  say  the  evening  office  with  her), 
he  found  her  engaged  with  a  little  goatherd,  who  in  a 
sudden  seizure  had  fallen  from  a  rock  above  her  cave, 
and  lay  senseless  and  full  of  blood  at  her  feet.  And  the 
Hermit  saw  with  wonder  how  skilfully  she  bound  up  his 
cuts  and  restored  his  senses,  giving  him  to  drink  of  a 
liquor  she  had  distilled  from  the  simples  of  the  moun 
tain;  whereat  the  boy  opened  his  eyes  and  praised  God, 
as  one  restored  by  heaven.  Now  it  was  known  that  this  lad 
was  subject  to  possessions,  and  had  more  than  once  dropped 
lifeless  while  he  heeded  his  flock;  and  the  Hermit,  knowing 
that  only  great  saints  or  unclean  necromancers  can  loosen 
devils,  feared  that  the  Wild  Woman  had  exorcised  the 
spirits  by  means  of  unholy  spells.  But  she  told  him  that  the 
goatherd's  sickness  was  caused  only  by  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
and  that,  such  seizures  being  common  in  the  hot  countries 
whence  she  came,  she  had  learned  from  a  wise  woman 
how  to  stay  them  by  a  decoction  of  the  carduus  benedictus, 
made  in  the  third  night  of  the  waxing  moon,  but  without 
the  aid  of  magic. 

[29] 


THE   HERMIT 

"But,"  she  continued,  "you  need  not  fear  my  bringing 
scandal  on  your  holy  retreat,  for  by  the  arts  of  the  same 
wise  woman  my  own  wound  is  well-nigh  healed,  and  to 
night  at  sunset  I  set  forth." 

The  Hermit's  heart  grew  heavy  as  she  spoke,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  that  her  own  look  was  sorrowful.  And 
suddenly  his  perplexities  were  lifted  from  him,  and  he 
saw  what  was  God's  purpose  with  the  Wild  Woman. 

"Why,"  said  he,  "do  you  fly  from  this  place,  where  you 
are  safe  from  molestation,  and  can  look  to  the  saving  of 
your  soul  ?  Is  it  that  your  feet  weary  for  the  road,  and  your 
spirits  are  heavy  for  lack  of  worldly  discourse?" 

She  replied  that  she  had  no  wish  to  travel,  and  felt  no 
repugnance  to  solitude.  "  But,"  said  she,  "  I  must  go  forth 
to  beg  my  bread,  since  in  this  wilderness  there  is  none  but 
yourself  to  feed  me;  and  moreover,  when  it  is  known  that 
I  have  healed  the  goatherd,  curious  folk  and  scandal 
mongers  may  seek  me  out,  and,  learning  whence  I  come, 
drag  me  back  to  the  cloister." 

Then  the  Hermit  answered  her  and  said:  "In  the 
early  days,  when  the  faith  of  Christ  was  first  preached, 
there  were  holy  women  who  fled  to  the  desert  and  lived 
there  in  solitude,  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the  edification 
of  their  sex.  If  you  are  minded  to  embrace  so  austere  a 
life,  contenting  you  with  sucli  sustenance  as  the  wilder 
ness  yields,  and  wearing  out  your  days  in  prayer  and  vigil, 
it  may  be  that  you  shall  make  amends  for  the  great  sin 
[30] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

you  have  committed,  and  live  and  die  in  the  peace  of  the 
Lord  Jesus." 

He  spoke  thus,  knowing  that  if  she  left  him  and  returned 
to  her  roaming,  hunger  and  fear  might  drive  her  to  fresh 
sin;  whereas  in  a  life  of  penance  and  reclusion  her  eyes 
might  be  opened  to  her  iniquity. 

He  saw  that  his  words  moved  her,  and  she  seemed  about 
to  consent,  and  embrace  a  life  of  holiness;  but  suddenly 
she  fell  silent,  and  looked  down  on  the  valley  at  their  feet. 

"A  stream  flows  in  the  glen  below  us,"  she  said.  "Do 
you  forbid  me  to  bathe  in  it  in  the  heat  of  summer  ?  " 

"It  is  not  I  that  forbid  you,  my  daughter,  but  the  laws 
of  God,"  said  the  Hermit;  "yet  see  how  miraculously 
heaven  protects  you — for  in  the  hot  season,  when  your  lust 
is  upon  you,  our  stream  runs  dry,  and  temptation  will  be 
removed  from  you.  Moreover  on  these  heights  there  is  no 
excess  of  heat  to  madden  the  body,  but  always,  before  dawn 
and  at  the  angelus,  a  cool  breeze  which  refreshes  it  like 
water." 

And  after  thinking  long  on  this,  and  again  receiving 
his  promise  not  to  betray  her,  the  Wild  Woman  agreed  to 
embrace  a  life  of  reclusion;  and  the  Hermit  fell  on  his 
knees,  worshipping  God  and  rejoicing  to  think  that,  if  he 
saved  his  sister  from  sin,  his  own  term  of  probation  would 
be  shortened. 


[81] 


THE  HERMIT 

VI 

qpHEREAFTER  for  two  years  the  Hermit  and  the 
-*-     Wild  Woman  lived  side  by  side,  meeting  together 
to  pray  on  the  great  feast-days  of  the  year,  but  on  all  other 
days  dwelling  apart,  engaged  in  pious  practices. 

At  first  the  Hermit,  knowing  the  weakness  of  woman,  and 
her  little  aptitude  for  the  life  apart,  had  feared  that  he 
might  be  disturbed  by  the  nearness  of  his  penitent;  but 
she  faithfully  held  to  his  commands,  abstaining  from  all 
sight  of  him  save  on  the  Days  of  Obligation;  and  when 
they  met,  so  modest  and  devout  was  her  demeanour  that 
she  raised  his  soul  to  fresh  fervency.  And  gradually  it 
grew  sweet  to  him  to  think  that,  near  by  though  unseen, 
was  one  who  performed  the  same  tasks  at  the  same  hours; 
so  that,  whether  he  tended  his  garden,  or  recited  his  chap- 
let,  or  rose  under  the  stars  to  repeat  the  midnight  office, 
he  had  a  companion  in  all  his  labours  and  devotions. 

Meanwhile  the  report  had  spread  abroad  that  a  holy 
woman  who  cast  out  devils  had  made  her  dwelling  in  the 
Hermit's  cliff;  and  many  sick  persons  from  the  valley 
sought  her  out,  and  went  away  restored  by  her.  These  poor 
pilgrims  brought  her  oil  and  flour,  and  with  her  own  hands 
she  made  a  garden  like  the  Hermit's,  and  planted  it  with 
corn  and  lentils;  but  she  would  never  take  a  trout  from  the 
brook,  or  receive  the  gift  of  a  snared  wild-fowl,  for  she  said 

that  in  her  vagrant  life  the  wild  creatures  of  the  wood  had 
[32] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

befriended  her,  and  as  she  had  slept  in  peace  among  them, 
so  now  she  would  never  suffer  them  to  be  molested. 

In  the  third  year  came  a  plague,  and  death  walked  the 
cities,  and  many  poor  peasants  fled  to  the  hills  to  escape 
it.  These  the  Hermit  and  his  penitent  faithfully  tended, 
and  so  skilful  were  the  Wild  Woman's  ministrations  that 
the  report  of  them  reached  the  town  across  the  valley, 
and  a  deputation  of  burgesses  came  with  rich  offerings, 
and  besought  her  to  descend  and  comfort  their  sick.  The 
Hermit,  seeing  her  depart  on  so  dangerous  a  mission, 
would  have  accompanied  her,  but  she  bade  him  remain 
and  tend  those  who  fled  to  the  hills;  and  for  many  days 
his  heart  was  consumed  in  prayer  for  her,  and  he  feared 
lest  every  fugitive  should  bring  him  word  of  her  death. 

But  at  length  she  returned,  wearied-out  but  whole, 
and  covered  with  the  blessings  of  the  townsfolk;  and  there 
after  her  name  for  holiness  spread  as  wide  as  the  Hermit's. 

Seeing  how  constant  she  remained  in  her  chosen  life, 
and  what  advance  she  had  made  in  the  way  of  perfection, 
the  Hermit  now  felt  that  it  behooved  him  to  exhort  her 
again  to  return  to  the  convent;  and  more  than  once  he 
resolved  to  speak  with  her,  but  his  heart  hung  back.  At 
length  he  bethought  him  that  by  failing  in  this  duty  he 
imperilled  his  own  soul,  and  thereupon,  on  the  next  feast- 
day,  when  they  met,  he  reminded  her  that  in  spite  of  her 
good  works  she  still  lived  in  sin  and  excommunicate,  and 
that,  now  she  had  once  more  tasted  the  sweets  of  godli- 
[33] 


THE   HERMIT 

ness,  it  was  her  duty  to  confess  her  fault  and  give  herself 
up  to  her  superiors. 

She  heard  him  meekly,  but  when  he  had  spoken  she  was 
silent  and  her  tears  ran  over;  and  looking  at  her  he  wept 
also,  and  said  no  more.  And  they  prayed  together,  and  re 
turned  each  to  his  cave. 

It  was  not  till  late  winter  that  the  plague  abated;  and 
the  spring  and  early  summer  following  were  heavy  with 
rains  and  great  heat.  When  the  Hermit  visited  his  peni 
tent  at  the  feast  of  Pentecost,  she  appeared  to  him  so  weak 
and  wasted  that,  when  they  had  recited  the  Veni,  sancte 
spiritus,  and  the  proper  psalms,  he  taxed  her  with  too 
great  rigour  of  penitential  practices;  but  she  replied  that 
her  weakness  was  not  due  to  an  excess  of  discipline,  but 
that  she  had  brought  back  from  her  labours  among  the 
sick  a  heaviness  of  body  which  the  intemperance  of  the 
season  no  doubt  increased.  The  evil  rains  continued,  fall 
ing  chiefly  at  night,  while  by  day  the  land  reeked  with  heat 
and  vapours;  so  that  lassitude  fell  on  the  Hermit  also,  and 
he  could  hardly  drag  himself  down  to  the  spring  whence  he 
drew  his  drinking-water.  Thus  he  fell  into  the  habit  of 
going  down  to  the  glen  before  cockcrow,  after  he  had  re 
cited  Matins;  for  at  that  hour  the  rain  commonly  ceased, 
and  a  faint  air  was  stirring.  Now  because  of  the  wet  season 
the  stream  had  not  gone  dry,  and  instead  of  replenishing 
his  flagon  slowly  at  the  trickling  spring,  the  Hermit  went 
down  to  the  waterside  to  fill  it;  and  once,  as  he  descended 
[34] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

the  steep  slope  of  the  glen,  he  heard  the  covert  rustle,  and 
saw  the  leaves  stir  as  though  something  moved  behind 
them.  As  the  sound  ceased  the  leaves  grew  still;  but 
his  heart  was  shaken,  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  what  he 
had  seen  in  the  dusk  had  a  human  semblance,  such  as  the 
wood-people  wear.  And  he  was  loath  to  think  that  such  un 
hallowed  beings  haunted  the  glen. 

A  few  days  passed,  and  again,  descending  to  the  stream, 
he  saw  a  figure  flit  through  the  covert;  and  this  time  a 
deeper  fear  entered  into  him;  but  he  put  away  the  thought, 
and  prayed  fervently  for  all  souls  in  temptation.  And  when 
he  spoke  with  the  Wild  Woman  again,  on  the  feast  of  the 
Seven  Maccabees,  which  falls  on  the  first  day  of  August, 
he  was  smitten  with  fear  to  see  her  wasted  looks,  and 
besought  her  to  cease  from  labouring  and  let  him  min 
ister  to  her.  But  she  denied  him  gently,  and  replied 
that  all  she  asked  of  him  was  to  keep  her  steadfastly  in  his 
prayers. 

Before  the  feast  of  the  Assumption  the  rains  ceased, 
and  the  plague,  which  had  begun  to  show  itself,  was  stayed; 
but  the  ardency  of  the  sun  grew  greater,  and  the  Hermit's 
cliff  was  a  fiery  furnace.  Never  had  such  heat  been  known 
in  those  regions;  but  the  people  did  not  murmur,  for  with 
the  cessation  of  the  rain  their  crops  were  saved  and  the 
pestilence  banished;  and  these  mercies  they  ascribed  in 
great  part  to  the  prayers  and  macerations  of  the  two  holy 
anchorets.  Therefore  on  the  eve  of  the  Assumption  they 
[35] 


THE   HERMIT 

sent  a  messenger  to  the  Hermit,  saying  that  at  daylight 
on  the  morrow  the  townspeople  and  all  the  dwellers  in  the 
valley  would  come  forth,  led  by  their  Bishop,  who  bore 
the  Pope's  blessing  to  the  two  Solitaries,  and  who  was 
minded  to  celebrate  the  Mass  of  the  Assumption  in  the 
Hermit's  cave  in  the  cliffside.  At  the  word  the  Hermit  was 
well-nigh  distraught  with  joy,  for  he  felt  this  to  be  a  sign 
from  heaven  that  his  prayers  were  heard,  and  that  he  had 
won  the  Wild  Woman's  grace  as  well  as  his  own.  And  all 
night  he  prayed  that  on  the  morrow  she  might  confess 
her  fault  and  receive  the  Sacrament  with  him. 

Before  dawn  he  recited  the  psalms  of  the  proper  noc- 
turn;  then  he  girded  on  his  gown  and  sandals,  and  went 
forth  to  meet  the  Bishop. 

As  he  went  downward  daylight  stood  on  the  mountains, 
and  he  thought  he  had  never  seen  so  fair  a  dawn.  It  filled 
the  farthest  heaven  with  brightness,  and  penetrated  even 
to  the  woody  crevices  of  the  glen,  as  the  grace  of  God  had 
entered  into  the  obscurest  folds  of  his  heart.  The  morning 
airs  were  hushed,  and  he  heard  only  the  sound  of  his  own 
footfall,  and  the  murmur  of  the  stream  which,  though  di 
minished,  still  poured  a  swift  current  between  the  rocks; 
but  as  he  reached  the  bottom  of  the  glen  a  sound  of  chant 
ing  came  to  him,  and  he  knew  that  the  pilgrims  were  at 
hand.  His  heart  leapt  up  and  his  feet  hastened  forward; 
but  at  the  stream's  edge  they  were  suddenly  stayed,  for  in 
a  pool  where  the  water  was  still  deep  he  saw  the  shining 
[36] 


AND  THE   WILD   WOMAN 

of  a  woman's  body — and  on  the  bank  lay  the  Wild 
Woman's  gown  and  sandals. 

Fear  and  rage  possessed  the  Hermit's  heart,  and 
he  stood  as  one  smitten  dumb,  covering  his  eyes  from 
the  shame.  But  the  song  of  the  approaching  pilgrims 
swelled  louder  and  nearer,  and  he  cried  angrily  to  the 
Wild  Woman  to  come  forth  and  hide  herself  from  the 
people. 

She  made  no  answer,  but  in  the  dusk  he  saw  her  limbs 
sway  with  the  swaying  water,  and  her  eyes  were  turned 
to  him  as  if  in  mockery.  At  the  sight  fury  filled  him, 
and  clambering  over  the  rocks  to  the  pool's  edge  he  bent 
down  and  caught  her  by  the  shoulder.  At  that  moment 
he  could  have  strangled  her  with  his  hands,  so  abhorrent 
was  the  touch  of  her  flesh;  but  as  he  cried  out,  heaping  her 
with  cruel  names,  he  saw  that  her  eyes  returned  his  look 
without  wavering;  and  suddenly  it  came  to  him  that  she 
was  dead.  Then  through  all  his  anger  and  fear  a  great 
pang  smote  him;  for  here  was  his  work  undone,  and  one 
he  had  loved  in  Christ  laid  low  in  her  sin,  in  spite  of  all  his 
labours. 

One  moment  pity  possessed  him;  the  next  he  thought 
how  the  people  would  find  him  bending  above  the  body 
of  a  naked  woman,  whom  he  had  held  up  to  them  as  holy, 
but  whom  they  might  now  well  take  for  the  secret  instru 
ment  of  his  undoing;  and  seeing  how  at  her  touch  all  the 
slow  edifice  of  his  holiness  was  demolished,  and  his  soul  in 
[37] 


THE   HERMIT 

mortal  jeopardy,  he  felt  the  earth  reel  round  him  and  his 
eyes  grew  blind. 

Already  the  head  of  the  procession  had  appeared,  and 
the  glen  shook  with  the  great  sound  of  the  Salve  Regina. 
When  the  Hermit  opened  his  eyes  once  more  the  air  shone 
with  thronged  candle-flames,  which  glittered  on  the  gold 
of  priestly  vestments,  and  on  the  blazing  monstrance  be 
neath  its  canopy;  and  close  above  him  he  saw  the  Bishop's 
face.  ' 

The  Hermit  struggled  to  his  knees. 

"My  Father  in  God,"  he  cried,  "behold,  for  my  sins  I 
have  been  visited  by  a  demon — "  But  as  he  spoke  he  per 
ceived  that  those  about  him  no  longer  listened,  and  that 
the  Bishop  and  all  his  clergy  had  fallen  on  their  knees 
beside  the  pool.  Then  the  Hermit,  following  their  gaze, 
saw  that  the  brown  waters  of  the  pool  covered  the  Wild 
Woman's  limbs  as  with  a  garment,  and  that  about  her 
floating  head  a  brightness  floated;  and  to  the  utmost  edges 
of  the  throng  a  cry  of  praise  went  up,  for  many  were  there 
whom  the  Wild  Woman  had  healed,  and  who  read  God's 
mercy  in  this  wonder.  But  fresh  fear  fell  on  the  Hermit, 
for  he  had  cursed  a  dying  saint,  and  denounced  her  aloud 
to  all  the  people;  and  this  new  anguish,  coming  so  close  on 
the  other,  smote  down  his  enfeebled  frame,  so  that  his 
limbs  failed  him  and  again  he  sank  to  the  ground. 

The  earth  reeled,  and  the  bending  faces  grew  dim  about 
him;  but  as  he  forced  his  weak  voice  once  more  to  pro- 
[38] 


AND   THE   WILD   WOMAN 

claim  his  sins  he  felt  the  touch  of  absolution,  and  the  holy 
oils  of  the  last  voyage  on  his  lips  and  eyes.  Peace  returned 
to  him  then,  and  with  it  the  longing  to  look  once  more  upon 
his  lauds,  as  he  had  dreamed  of  doing  at  his  death;  but  he 
was  too  far  gone  to  make  this  longing  known,  and  so  tried 
to  put  it  from  his  mind.  Yet  in  his  weakness  it  held  him, 
and  the  tears  ran  down  his  face. 

Then,  as  he  lay  there,  feeling  the  earth  slip  from  him, 
and  the  everlasting  arms  replace  it,  he  heard  a  peal  of 
voices  that  seemed  to  come  down  from  the  sky  and  mingle 
with  the  singing  of  the  throng;  and  the  words  of  the 
chant  were  the  words  of  his  own  lauds,  so  long  hidden 
in  the  secret  of  his  breast,  and  now  rejoicing  above  him 
through  the  spheres.  And  his  soul  rose  on  the  chant,  and 
soared  with  it  to  the  seat  of  mercy. 


ff 


[39] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 


THE    LAST   ASSET 


THE  devil!"  Paul  Garnett  exclaimed  as  lie  re-read 
his  note;  and  the  dry  old  gentleman  who  was 
at  the  moment  his  only  neighbour  in  the  modest 
restaurant  they  both  frequented,  remarked  with  a  smile: 
"You  don't  seem  particularly  disturbed  at  meeting  him." 

Garnett  returned  the  smile.  "I  don't  know  why  I  apos 
trophised  him,  for  he's  not  in  the  least  present — except  in 
asmuch  as  he  may  prove  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  anything 
unexpected." 

The  old  gentleman  who,  like  Garnett,  was  an  American, 
and  spoke  in  the  thin  rarefied  voice  which  seems  best 
fitted  to  emit  sententious  truths,  twisted  his  lean  neck 
round  to  cackle  out:  "Ah,  it's  generally  a  woman  who's 
at  the  bottom  of  the  unexpected.  Not,"  he  added,  lean 
ing  forward  with  deliberation  to  select  a  tooth-pick, 
"that  that  precludes  the  devil's  being  there  too." 

Garnett  uttered  the  requisite  laugh,  and  his  neighbour, 
pushing  back  his  plate,  called  out  with  a  perfectly  unbend 
ing  American  intonation:  "Gassong!  L'addition,  silver 
play." 

His  repast,  as  usual,  had  been  a  simple  one,  and  he  left 
[43] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

only  thirty  centimes  in  the  plate  on  which  his  account  was 
presented;  but  the  waiter,  to  whom  he  was  evidently  a 
familiar  presence,  received  the  tribute  with  Latin  amen 
ity,  and  hovered  helpfully  about  the  table  while  the  old 
gentleman  cut  and  lighted  his  cigar. 

"Yes,"  the  latter  proceeded,  revolving  the  cigar  medi 
tatively  between  his  thin  lips,  "  they  're  generally  both  in 
the  same  hole,  like  the  owl  and  the  prairie-dog  in  the  nat 
ural  history  books  of  my  youth.  I  believe  it  was  all  a  mis 
take  about  the  owl  and  the  prairie-dog,  but  it  isn't  about 
the  unexpected.  The  fact  is,  the  unexpected  is  the  devil 
— the  sooner  you  find  that  out,  the  happier  you'll  be." 
He  leaned  back,  tilting  his  bald  head  against  the  blotched 
mirror  behind  him,  and  rambling  on  with  gentle  garrulity 
while  Garnett  attacked  his  omelet. 

"Get  your  life  down  to  routine — eliminate  surprises. 
Arrange  things  so  that,  when  you  get  up  in  the  morning, 
you'll  know  exactly  what's  going  to  happen  to  you  during 
the  day — and  the  next  day  and  the  next.  I  don't  say  it's 
funny — it  ain't.  But  it's  better  than  being  hit  on  the  head 
by  a  brickbat.  That's  why  I  always  take  my  meals  at  this 
restaurant.  I  know  just  how  much  onion  they  put  in  things 
— if  I  went  to  the  next  place  I  shouldn't.  And  I  always 
take  the  same  streets  to  come  here — I've  been  doing  it  for 
ten  years  now.  I  know  at  which  crossing  to  look  out — I 
know  what  I'm  going  to  see  in  the  shop-windows.  It  saves 
a  lot  of  wear  and  tear  to  know  what's  coming.  For  a  good 
[441 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

many  years  I  never  did  know,  from  one  minute  to  another, 
and  now  I  like  to  think  that  everything's  cut-and-dried, 
and  nothing  unexpected  can  jump  out  at  me  like  a  tramp 
from  a  ditch." 

He  paused  calmly  to  knock  the  ashes  from  his  cigar 
and  Garnett  said  with  a  smile:  "Doesn't  such  a  plan  of 
life  cut  off  nearly  all  the  possibilities?" 

The  old  gentleman  made  a  contemptuous  motion. 
"Possibilities  of  what  ?  Of  being  multifariously  miserable  ? 
There  are  lots  of  ways  of  being  miserable,  but  there's  only 
one  way  of  being  comfortable,  and  that  is  to  stop  running 
round  after  happiness.  If  you  make  up  your  mind  not  to 
be  happy  there's  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't  have  a 
fairly  good  time." 

•  "That  was  Schopenhauer's  idea,  I  believe,"  the  young 
man  said,  pouring  his  wine  with  the  smile  of  youthful  in 
credulity. 

"I  guess  he  hadn't  the  monopoly,"  responded  his  friend. 
"Lots  of  people  have  found  out  the  secret — the  trouble  is 
that  so  few  live  up  to  it." 

He  rose  from  his  seat,  pushing  the  table  forward,  and 
standing  passive  while  the  waiter  advanced  with  his 
shabby  overcoat  and  umbrella.  Then  he  nodded  to  Gar 
nett,  lifted  his  hat  to  the  broad-bosomed  lady  behind  the 
desk,  and  passed  out  into  the  street. 

Garnett  looked  after  him  with  a  musing  smile.  The  two 
had  exchanged  views  on  life  for  two  years  without  so  much 
[45] 


THE  LAST  ASSET 

as  knowing  each  other's  names.  Garnett  was  a  newspaper 
correspondent  whose  work  kept  him  mainly  in  London, 
but  on  his  periodic  visits  to  Paris  he  lodged  in  a  dingy 
hotel  of  the  Latin  quarter,  the  chief  merit  of  which  was 
its  nearness  to  the  cheap  and  excellent  restaurant  where 
the  two  Americans  had  made  acquaintance.  But  Garnett's 
assiduity  in  frequenting  the  place  arose,  in  the  end,  less  from 
the  excellence  of  the  food  than  from  the  enjoyment  of  his 
old  friend's  conversation.  Amid  the  flashy  sophistications 
of  the  Parisian  life  to  which  Garnett 's  trade  introduced  him, 
the  American  sage's  conversation  had  the  crisp  and  homely 
flavour  of  a  native  dish — one  of  the  domestic  compounds 
for  which  the  exiled  palate  is  supposed  to  yearn.  It  was  a 
mark  of  the  old  man's  impersonality  that,  in  spite  of  the 
interest  he  inspired,  Garnett  had  never  got  beyond  idly 
wondering  who  he  might  be,  where  he  lived,  and  what  his 
occupations  were.  He  was  presumably  a  bachelor — a  man 
of  family  ties,  however  relaxed,  though  he  might  have  been 
as  often  absent  from  home  would  not  have  been  as  regularly 
present  in  the  same  place — and  there  was  about  him  a 
boundless  desultoriness  which  renewed  Garnett's  convic 
tion  that  there  is  no  one  on  earth  as  idle  as  an  American 
who  is  not  busy.  From  certain  allusions  it  was  plain  that 
he  had  lived  many  years  in  Paris,  yet  he  had  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  adapt  his  tongue  to  the  local  inflections,  but  spoke 
French  with  the  accent  of  one  who  has  formed  his  notion 
of  the  language  from  a  phrase-book. 
[46] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

The  city  itself  seemed  to  have  made  as  little  impression 
on  him  as  its  speech.  He  appeared  to  have  no  artistic  or  in-  ; 
tellectual  curiosities,  to  remain  untouched  by  the  complex 
appeal  of  Paris,  while  preserving,  perhaps  the  more  strik 
ingly  from  his  very  detachment,  that  odd  American  astute 
ness  which  seems  the  fruit  of  innocence  rather  than  of  ex 
perience.  His  nationality  revealed  itself  again  in  a  mild 
interest  in  the  political  problems  of  his  adopted  country, 
though  they  appeared  to  preoccupy  him  only  as  illustrating 
the  boundless  perversity  of  mankind.  The  exhibition  of_ 
human  folly  never  ceased  to  divert  him,  and  though  his 
examples  of  it  seemed  mainly  drawn  from  the  columns  of 
one  exiguous  daily  paper,  he  found  there  matter  for  end 
less  variations  on  his  favourite  theme.  If  this  monotony  of 
topic  did  not  weary  the  younger  man,  it  was  because  he 
fancied  he  could  detect  under  it  the  tragic  note  of  the 
fixed  idea — of  some  great  moral  upheaval  which  had  flung 
his  friend  stripped  and  starving  on  the  desert  island  of  the 
little  restaurant  where  they  met.  He  hardly  knew  wherein 
he  read  this  revelation — whether  in  the  shabbiness  of  the 
sage's  dress,  the  impersonal  courtesy  of  his  manner,  or  the 
shade  of  apprehension  which  lurked,  indescribably,  in  his 
guileless  yet  suspicious  eye.  There  were  moments  when 
Garnett  could  only  define  him  by  saying  that  he  looked  like 
a  man  who  had  seen  a  ghost. 


[47] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

II 

AN  apparition  almost  as  startling  had  come  to  Garnett 
•*•  *-  himself  iijthe  shape  of  the  mauve  note  handed  to  him 
by  his  conciergt  as  he  was  leaving  the  hotel  for  luncheon. 

Not  that,/ on  the  face  of  it,  a  missive  announcing  Mrs. 
Sam  Nefaell's 'arrival  at  Ritz's,  and  her  need  of  his  pres 
ence  there  that  day  at  five,  carried  any  mark  of  the 
portentous.  It  was  not  her  being  at  Ritz's  that  sur 
prised  him.  The  fact  that  she  was  chronically  hard  up, 
and  had  once  or  twice  lately  been  so  harshly  confronted 
with  the  consequences  as  to  accept — indeed  solicit — a  loan 
of  five  pounds  from  him:  this  circumstance,  as  Garnett 
knew,  would  never  be  allowed  to  affect  the  general  tenor 
of  her  existence.  If  one  came  to  Paris,  where  could  one  go 
but  to  Ritz's  ?  Did  he  see  her  in  some  grubby  hole  across 
the  river  ?  Or  in  a  family  pension  near  the  Place  de  1'Etoile  ? 
There  was  no  affectation  in  her  tendency  to  gravitate 
toward  what  was  costliest  and  most  conspicuous.  In  doing 
so  she  obeyed  one  of  the  profoundest  instincts  of  her  nature, 
and  it  was  another  instinct  which  taught  her  to  gratify 
the  first  at  any  cost,  even  to  that  of  dipping  into  the  pocket 
of  an  impecunious  journalist.  It  was  a  part  of  her  strength 
— and  of  her  charm,  too — that  she  did  such  things  naturally, 
openly,  without  any  of  the  grimaces  of  dissimulation  or 
compunction. 

Her  recourse  to  Garnett  had  of  course  marked  a  specially 
[48] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

low  ebb  in  her  fortunes.  Save  in  moments  of  exceptional 
dearth  she  had  richer  sources  of  supply;  and  he  was  nearly 
sure  that  by  running  over  the  "society  column"  of  the 
Paris  Herald  he  should  find  an  explanation,  not  perhaps 
of  her  presence  at  Ritz's,  but  of  her  means  of  subsistence 
there.  What  perplexed  him  was  not  the  financial  but  the 
social  aspect  of  the  case.  When  Mrs.  Newell  had  left 
London  in  July  she  had  told  him  that,  between  Cowes  and 
Scotland,  she  and  Hermy  were  provided  for  till  the  middle 
of  October:  after  that,  as  she  put  it,  they  would  have  to 
look  about.  Why,  then,  when  she  had  in  her  hand  the  op 
portunity  of  living  for  three  months  at  the  expense  of  the 
British  aristocracy,  did  she  rush  off  to  Paris  at  heaven 
knew  whose  expense  in  the  beginning  of  September  ?  She 
was  not  a  woman  to  act  incoherently;  if  she  made  mistakes 
they  were  not  of  that  kind.  Garnett  felt  sure  she  would 
never  willingly  relax  her  hold  on  her  distinguished  friends 
— was  it  possible  that  it  was  they  who  had  somewrhat 
violently  let  go  of  her? 

As  Garnett  reviewed  the  situation  he  began  to  see  that 
this  possibility  had  for  some  time  been  latent  in  it.  He  had 
felt  that  something  might  happen  at  any  moment — and 
was  not  this  the  something  he  had  obscurely  foreseen  ?  Mrs. 
Newell  really  moved  too  fast:  her  position  was  as  perilous 
as  that  of  an  invading  army  without  a  base  of  supplies. 
She  used  up  everything  too  quickly — friends,  credit,  in 
fluence,  forbearance.  It  was  so  easy  for  her  to  acquire  all 
[49] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

these — what  a  pity  she  had  never  learned  to  keep  them! 
He  himself,  for  instance — the  most  insignificant  of  her  ac 
quisitions — was  beginning  to  feel  like  a  squeezed  sponge 
at  the  mere  thought  of  her;  and  it  was  this  sense  of  exhaus 
tion,  of  the  inability  to  provide  more,  either  materially  or 
morally,  which  had  provoked  his  exclamation  on  open 
ing  her  note.  From  the  first  days  of  their  acquaintance  her 
prodigality  had  amazed  him,  but  he  had  believed  it  to  be 
surpassed  by  the  infinity  of  her  resources.  If  she  exhausted 
old  supplies  she  always  had  new  ones  to  replace  them. 
When  one  set  of  people  began  to  find  her  impossible,  an 
other  was  always  beginning  to  find  her  indispensable. 
Yes — but  there  were  limits — there  were  only  so  many  sets 
of  people,  at  least  in  her  classification,  and  when  she 
came  to  an  end  of  them,  what  then?  Was  this  flight  to 
Paris  a  sign  that  she  had  come  to  an  end — was  she  going 
to  try  Paris  because  London  had  failed  her?  The  time  of 
year  precluded  such  a  conjecture.  Mrs.  Newell's  Pdrjs  was 
non-existent  in  September.  The  town  was  a  desert  of  gaping 
trippers — he  could  as  soon  think  of  her  seeking  social  res 
toration  at  Margate. 

For  a  moment  it  occurred  to  him  that  she  might  have 
come  over  to  renew  her  wardrobe;  but  he  knew  her 
dates  too  well  to  dwell  long  on  this.  It  was  in  April  and 
December  that  she  visited  the  dress-makers:  before  De 
cember,  he  had  heard  her  explain,  one  got  nothing  but 
"the  American  fashions."  Mrs.  Newell's  scorn  of  all 
[501 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

things  American  was  somewhat  illogically  coupled  with 
the  determination  to  use  her  own  Americanism  to  the  ut 
most  as  a  means  of  social  advance.  She  had  found  out  long 
ago  that,  on  certain  lines,  it  paid  in  London  to  be  American, 
and  she  had  manufactured  for  herself  a  personality  in 
dependent  of  geographical  or  social  demarcations,  and  pre 
senting  that  remarkable  blend  of  plantation  dialect,  Bow 
ery  slang  and  hyperbolic  statement,  which  expresses  the 
British  idea  of  an  unadulterated  Americanism.  Mrs. 
Newell,  for  all  her  talents,  was  not  by  nature  either 
humorous  or  hyperbolic,  and  there  were  times  when  it 
would  doubtless  have  been  a  relief  to  her  to  be  as  stolid 
as  some  of  the  persons  whose  dulness  it  was  her  fate 
to  enliven.  It  was  perhaps  the  need  of  relaxing  which 
had  drawn  her  into  her  odd  intimacy  with  Garnett,  with 
whom  she  did  not  have  to  be  either  scrupulously  Eng 
lish  or  artificially  American,  since  the  impression  she 
made  on  him  was  of  no  more  consequence  than  that 
which  she  produced  on  her  footman.  Garnett  was  aware 
that  he  owed  his  success  to  his  insignificance,  but  the 
fact  affected  him  only  as  adding  one  more  element  to 
his  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Ne well's  character.  He  was  as  ready 
to  sacrifice  his  personal  vanity  in  such  a  cause  as  he  had 
been,  at  the  outset  of  their  acquaintance,  to  sacrifice  his 
professional  pride  to  the  opportunity  of  knowing  her. 

When  he  had  accepted  the  position  of  "London  corre 
spondent"   (with  an  occasional  side-glance  at  Paris)  to 
[51] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

the  New  York  Searchlight,  he  had  not  understood  that 
his  work  was  to  include  the  obligation  of  "interviewing"; 
indeed,  had  the  possibility  presented  itself  in  advance,  he 
would  have  met  it  by  packing  his  valise  and  returning  to 
the  drudgery  of  his  assistant-editorship  in  New  York. 
But  when,  after  three  months  in  Europe,  he  received  a 
letter  from  his  chief,  suggesting  that  he  should  enliven  the 
Sunday  Searchlight  by  a  series  of  "Talks  with  Smart 
Americans  in  London"  (beginning  say,  with  Mrs.  Sam 
Newell),  the  change  of  focus  already  enabled  him  to  view 
the  proposal  without  passion.  For  his  life  on  the  edge  of 
the  great  world-caldron  of  art,  politics  and  pleasure — 
of  that  high-spiced  brew  which  is  nowhere  else  so  subtly 
and  variously  compounded — had  bred  in  him  an  eager 
ness  to  taste  of  the  heady  mixture.  He  knew  he  should 
never  have  the  full  spoon  at  his  lips,  but  he  recalled  the 
peasant-girl  in  one  of  Browning's  plays,  who  boasts  of 
having  eaten  polenta  cut  with  a  knife  which  has  carved 
an  ortolan.  Might  not  Mrs.  Newell,  who  had  so  success 
fully  cut  a  way  into  the  dense  and  succulent  mass  of  Eng 
lish  society,  serve  as  the  knife  to  season  his  polenta  ? 

He  had  expected,  as  the  result  of  the  interview,  to  which 
she  promptly,  almost  eagerly,  agreed,  no  more  than  the 
glimpse  of  brightly  lit  vistas  which  a  waiting  messenger 
may  catch  through  open  doors;  but  instead  he  had  found 
himself  drawn  at  once  into  the  inner  sanctuary,  not  of 
London  society,  but  of  Mrs.  Newell's  relation  to  it.  She 
[52] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

had  been  candidly  charmed  by  the  idea  of  the  interview: 
it  struck  him  that  she  was  conscious  of  the  need  of  being 
freshened  up.  Her  appearance  was  brilliantly  fresh,  with 
the  inveterate  freshness  of  the  toilet-table;  her  paint  was  as 
impenetrable  as  armour.  But  her  personality  was  a  little 
tarnished:  she  was  in  want  of  social  renovation.  She  had 
been  doing  and  saying  the  same  things  for  too  long  a  time. 
London,  Cowes,  Homburg,  Scotland,  Monte  Carlo — that 
had  been  the  round  since  Hermy  was  a  baby.  Hermy  was 
her  daughter,  Miss  Hermione  Newell,  who  was  called  in 
presently  to  be  shown  off  to  the  interviewer  and  add  a  para 
graph  to  the  celebration  of  her  mother's  charms. 

Miss  Newell's  appearance  was  so  full  of  an  unassisted 
freshness  that  for  a  moment  Garnett  made  the  mistake  of 
fancying  that  she  could  fill  a  paragraph  of  her  own.  But 
he  soon  found  that  her  vague  personality  was  merely 
tributary  to  her  parent's;  that  her  youth  and  grace  were, 
in  some  mysterious  way,  her  mother's  rather  than  her  own. 
She  smiled  obediently  on  Garnett,  but  could  contribute 
little  beyond  her  smile,  and  the  general  sweetness  of  her 
presence,  to  the  picture  of  Mrs.  Newell's  existence  that  it 
was  the  young  man's  business  to  draw.  And  presently  he 
found  that  she  had  left  the  room  without  his  noticing  it. 

He  learned  in  time  that  this  unnoticeableness  was  the 

most  conspicuous  thing  about  her.  Burning  at  best  with  a 

mild  light,  she  became  invisible  in  the  glare  of  her  mother's 

personality.  It  was  in  fact  only  as  a  product  of  her  environ- 

[53] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

ment  that  poor  Hermione  struck  the  imagination.  With  the 
smartest  woman  in  London  as  her  guide  and  example  she 
had  never  developed  a  taste  for  dress,  and  with  opportuni 
ties  for  enlightenment  from  which  Garnett's  fancy  recoiled 
she  remained  simple,  unsuspicious  and  tender,  with  an 
inclination  to  good  works  and  afternoon  church,  a  taste 
for  the  society  of  dull  girls,  and  a  clinging  fidelity  to  old 
governesses  and  retired  nurse-maids.  Mrs.  Newell,  whose 
boast  it  was  that  she  looked  facts  in  the  face,  frankly 
owned  that  she  had  not  been  able  to  make  anything  of 
Hermione.  "If  she  has  a  role  I  haven't  discovered  it,"  she 
confessed  to  Garnett.  "  I've  tried  everything,  but  she  doesn't 
fit  in  anywhere." 

Mrs.  Newell  spoke  as  if  her  daughter  were  a  piece  of 
furniture  acquired  without  due  reflection,  and  for  which 
no  suitable  place  could  be  found.  She  got,  of  course,  what 
she  could  out  of  Hermione,  who  wrote  her  notes,  ran  her 
errands,  saw  tiresome  people  for  her,  and  occupied  an 
intermediate  office  between  that  of  lady's  maid  and  secre 
tary;  but  such  small  returns  on  her  investment  were  not 
what  Mrs.  Newell  had  counted  on.  What  was  the  use  of 
producing  and  educating  a  handsome  daughter  if  she  did 
not,  in  some  more  positive  way,  contribute  to  her  parent's 
advancement  ? 


[54] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

III 

"TT'S  about  Hermy,"  Mrs.  Newell  said,  rising  from  the 
heap  of  embroidered  cushions  which  formed  the 
background  of  her  afternoon  repose. 

Her  sitting-room  at  Ritz's  was  full  of  warmth  and 
fragrance.  Long-stemmed  roses  filled  the  vases  on  the 
chimney-piece,  in  which  a  fire  sparkled  with  that  effect  of 
luxury  which  fires  produce  when  the  weather  is  not  cold 
enough  to  justify  them.  On  the  writing-table,  among  notes 
and  cards,  and  signed  photographs  of  celebrities,  Mrs. 
Newell's  gold  inkstand,  her  jewelled  pen-holder,  her  heavily 
monogrammed  despatch-box,  gave  back  from  their  ex 
pensive  surfaces  the  glint  of  the  flame,  which  sought  out 
and  magnified  the  orient  of  the  pearls  among  the  lady's 
laces  and  found  a  mirror  in  the  pinky  polish  of  her  finger 
tips.  It  was  just  such  a  scene  as  a  little  September  fire,  lit 
for  show  and  not  for  warmth,  would  delight  to  dwell  on 
and  pick  out  in  all  its  opulent  details;  and  even  Garnett, 
inured  to  Mrs.  Newell's  capacity  for  extracting  manna  from 
the  desert,  reflected  that  she  must  have  found  new  fields 
to  glean. 

"It's  about  Hermy,"  she  repeated,  making  room  for 
him  at  her  side.  "I  had  to  see  you  at  once.  We  came  over 
yesterday  from  London." 

Garnett,  seating  himself,  continued  his  leisurely  survey 
[55] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

of  the  room.  In  the  blaze  of  Mrs.  Newell's  refulgence 
Hermione,  as  usual,  faded  out' of  sight,  and  he  hardly 
noticed  her  mother's  allusion. 

"I've  never  seen  you  more  resplendent,"  he  remarked. 

She  received  the  tribute  with  complacency.  "The  rooms 
are  not  bad,  are  they?  We  came  over  with  the  Woolsey 
Hubbards  (you've  heard  of  them,  of  course? — they're 
from  Detroit),  and  really  they  do  things  very  decently. 
Their  motor  met  us  at  Boulogne,  and  the  courier  al 
ways  wires  ahead  to  have  the  rooms  filled  with  flowers. 
This  salon  is  really  a  part  of  their  suite.  I  simply  couldn't 
have  afforded  it  myself." 

She  delivered  these  facts  in  a  high  decisive  voice,  which 
had  a  note  like  the  clink  of  her  many  bracelets  and  the 
rattle  of  her  ringed  hands  against  the  enamelled  cigarette- 
case  that  she  held  out  to  Garnett  after  helping  herself 
from  its  contents. 

"You  are  always  meeting  such  charming  people,"  said 
the  young  man  with  mild  irony;  and,  reverting  to  her 
first  remark,  he  bethought  himself  to  add:  "I  hope  Miss 
Hermione  is  not  ill?" 

"111?  She  was  never  ill  in  her  life,"  exclaimed  Mrs. 
Newell,  as  though  her  daughter  had  been  accused  of  an 
indelicacy. 

"It  was  only  that  you  said  you  had  come  over  on  her 
account." 

"So  I  have.  Hermione  is  to  be  married." 
[56] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

Mrs.  Newell  brought  out  the  words  impressively,  draw 
ing  back  to  observe  their  effect  on  her  visitor.  It  was  such 
that  he  received  them  with  a  long  silent  stare,  which  finally 
passed  into  a  cry  of  wonder.  "Married?  For  heaven's 
sake,  to  whom?" 

Mrs.  Newell  continued  to  regard  him  with  a  smile  so 
serene  and  victorious  that  he  saw  she  took  his  somewhat 
unseemly  astonishment  as  a  merited  tribute  to  her  genius. 
Presently  she  extended  a  glittering  hand  and  took  a  sheet 
of  note-paper  from  the  blotter. 

"You  can  have  that  put  in  to-morrow's  Herald"  she 
said. 

Garnett,  receiving  the  paper,  read  in  Hermione's  own 
finished  hand:  "A  marriage  has  been  arranged,  and  will 
shortly  take  place,  between  the  Comte  Louis  du  Trayas, 
son  of  the  Marquis  du  Trayas  de  la  Baume,  and  Miss 
Hermione  Newell,  daughter  of  Samuel  C.  Newell  Esqre., 
of  Elmira,  N.  Y.  Comte  Louis  du  Trayas  belongs  to  one 
of  the  oldest  and  most  distinguished  families  in  France, 
and  is  equally  well  connected  in  England,  being  the  nephew 
of  Lord  Saint  Priscoe  and  a  cousin  of  the  Countess  of 
Morningfield,  whom  he  frequently  visits  at  Adham  and 
Portlow." 

The  perusal  of  this  document  filled  Garnett  with  such 

deepening  wonder  that  he  could  not,  for  the  moment,  even 

do  justice  to  the  strangeness  of  its  being  written  out  for 

publication  in  the  bride's  own  hand.  Hermione  a  bride! 

[57] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

Hermione  a  future  countess!  Hermione  on  the  brink  of  a 
marriage  which  would  give  her  not  only  a  great  "situa 
tion"  in  the  Parisian  world  but  a  footing  in  some  of  the 
best  houses  in  England!  Regardless  of  its  unflattering  im 
plications,  Garnett  prolonged  his  stare  of  amazement  till 
Mrs.  Newell  somewhat  sharply  exclaimed — "Well,  didn't 
I  always  tell  you  she'd  marry  a  Frenchman  ?" 

Garnett,  in  spite  of  himself,  smiled  at  this  revised  version 
of  his  hostess's  frequent  assertion  that  Hermione  was  too 
goody-goody  to  take  in  England,  but  that  with  her  little 
dowdy  air  she  might  very  well  "go  off"  in  the  Fau 
bourg  if  only  a  dot  could  be  raked  up — and  the  recollec 
tion  flashed  a  new  light  on  the  versatility  of  Mrs.  Newell's 
genius. 

"  But  how  did  you  do  it —  ?  "  was  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue; 
and  he  had  barely  time  to  give  the  query  the  more  conven 
tional  turn  of:  "How  did  it  happen?" 

"Oh,  we  were  up  at  Glaish  with  the  Edmund  Fitz- 
arthurs.  Lady  Edmund  is  a  sort  of  cousin  of  the  Morning- 
fields',  who  have  a  shooting-lodge  near  Glaish — a  place 
called  Portlow — and  young  Trayas  was  there  with  them. 
Lady  Edmund,  who  is  a  dear,  drove  Hermy  over  to  Port- 
low,  and  the  thing  was  done  m  no  time.  He  simply  fell  over 
head  and  ears  in  love  with  her.  You  know  Hermy  is  really 
very  handsome  in  her  peculiar  way.  I  don't  think  you've 
ever  appreciated  her,"  Mrs.  Newell  summed  up  with  a 
note  of  reproach. 

[68] 


THE   LAST   ASSE T 

"I've  appreciated  her,  I  assure  you;  but  one  somehow 
didn't  think  of  her  marrying — so  soon." 

"Soon?  She's  three  and  twenty;  but  you've  no  imagi 
nation,"  said  Mrs.  Newell;  and  Garnett  inwardly  admitted 
that  he  had  not  enough  to  soar  to  the  heights  of  her  inven 
tion.  For  the  marriage,  of  course,  was  her  invention,  a 
superlative  stroke  of  business  in  which  he  was  sure 

"*— — - 

the  principal  parties  had  all  been  passive  agents,  in 
which  every  one,  from  the  bankrupt  and  disreputable 
Fitzarthurs  to  the  rich  and  immaculate  Morningfields, 
had  by  some  mysterious  sleight  of  hand  been  made  to  fit 
into  Mrs.  NewelTs  designs.  But  it  was  not  enough  for 
Garnett  to  marvel  at  her  work — he  wanted  to  understand 
it,  to  take  it  apart,  to  find  out  how  the  trick  had  been 
done.  It  was  true  that  Mrs.  Newell  had  always  said  Hermy 
might  go  off  in  the  Faubourg  if  she  had  a  dot — but  even 
Mrs.  Newell's  juggling  could  hardly  conjure  up  a  dot: 
such  feats  as  she  was  able  to  perform  in  this  line  were  usu 
ally  made  to  serve  her  own  urgent  necessities.  And  be 
sides,  who  was  likely  to  take  sufficient  interest  in  Hermione 
to  supply  her  with  the  means  of  marrying  a  French  noble 
man?  The  flowers  ordered  in  advance  by  the  Woolsey 
Hubbards'  courier  made  Garnett  wonder  if  that  accom 
plished  functionary  had  also  wired  over  to  have  Miss 
Newell's  settlements  drawn  up.  But  of  all  the  comments 
hovering  on  his  lips  the  only  one  he  could  decently  formu 
late  was  the  remark  that  he  supposed  Mrs.  Newell  and  her 
[59] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

daughter  had  come  over  to  see  the  young  man's  family 
and  make  the  final  arrangements. 

"Oh,  they're  made — everything's  settled,"  said  Mrs. 
Newell,  looking  him  squarely  in  the  eye.  "You're  wonder 
ing,  of  course,  about  the  dot — Frenchmen  never  go  off 
their  heads  to  the  extent  of  forgetting  that;  or  at  least  their 
parents  don't  allow  them  to." 

Garnett  murmured  a  vague  assent,  and  she  went  on 
without  the  least  appearance  of  resenting  his  curiosity: 
"It  all  came  about  so  fortunately.  Only  fancy,  just  the 
week  they  met  I  got  a  little  legacy  from  an  aunt  in  Elmira 
— a  good  soul  I  hadn't  seen  or  heard  of  for  years.  I  sup 
pose  I  ought  to  have  put  on  mourning  for  her,  by  the  way, 
but  it  would  have  eaten  up  a  good  bit  of  the  legacy,  and  I 
really  needed  it  all  for  poor  Hermy.  Oh,  it's  not  a  fortune, 
you  understand — but  the  young  man  is  madly  in  love,  and 
has  always  had  his  own  way,  so  after  a  lot  of  correspond 
ence  it's  been  arranged.  They  saw  Hermy  this  morning, 
and  they're  enchanted." 

"And  the  marriage  takes  place  very  soon?" 

"Yes,  in  a  few  weeks,  here.  His  mother  is  an  invalid 
and  couldn't  have  gone  to  England.  Besides,  the  French 
don't  travel.  And  as  Hermy  has  become  a  Catholic — " 

"Already?" 

Mrs.  Newell  stared.  "It  doesn't  take  long.  And  it  suits 
Hermy  exactly — she  can  go  to  church  so  much  oftener. 
So  I  thought,"  Mrs.  Newell  concluded  with  dignity,  "that 
[60] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

a  wedding  at  Saint  Philippe  du  Roule  would  be  the  most 
suitable  thing  at  this  season." 

"Dear  me,"  said  Garnett,  "I  am  left  breathless— I 
can't  catch  up  with  you.  I  suppose  even  the  day  is  fixed, 
though  Miss  Hermione  doesn't  mention  it,"  and  he  indi 
cated  the  official  announcement  in  his  hand. 

Mrs.  Newell  laughed.  "Hermy  had  to  write  that  her 
self,  poor  dear,  because  my  scrawl's  too  hideous — but  I 
dictated  it.  No,  the  day's  not  fixed — that's  why  I  sent  for 
you."  There  was  a  splendid  directness  about  Mrs.  Newell. 
It  would  never  have  occurred  to  her  to  pretend  to  Garnett 
that  she  had  summoned  him  for  the  pleasure  of  his  com 
pany. 

"You've  sent  for  me — to  fix  the  day?"  he  enquired 
humorously. 

"To  remove  the  last  obstacle  to  its  being  fixed." 

"I?  What  kind  of  an  obstacle  could  I  have  the  least 
effect  on?" 

Mrs.  Newell  met  his  banter  with  a  look  which  quelled 
it.  "I  want  you  to  find  her  father." 

"Her  father?  Miss  Hermione's—  ? " 

"My  husband,  of  course.  I  suppose  you  know  he's 
living." 

Garnett  blushed  at  his  own  clumsiness.  "I — yes — that 

is,  I  really  knew  nothing — "  he  stammered,  feeling  that 

each  word  added  to  it.  If  Hermione  was  unnoticeable, 

Mr.  Newell  had  always  been  invisible.  The  young  man 

[61] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

had  never  so  much  as  given  him  a  thought,  and  it  was 
awkward  to  come  on  him  so  suddenly  at  a  turn  of  the  talk. 

"Well,  he  is — living  here  in  Paris,"  said  Mrs.  Newell, 
with  a  note  of  asperity  which  seemed  to  imply  that  her 
friend  might  have  taken  the  trouble  to  post  himself  on  this 
point. 

"In  Paris?  But  in  that  case  isn't  it  quite  simple — ?" 

"To  find  him?  I  dare  say  it  won't  be  difficult,  though 
he's  rather  mysterious.  But  the  point  is  that  I  can't  go  to 
him — and  that  if  I  write  to  him  he  won't  answer." 

"Ah,"  said  Garnett  thoughtfully. 

"And  so  you've  got  to  find  him  for  me,  and  tell  him." 

"Tell  him  what?" 

"That  he  must  come  to  the  wedding — that  we  must 
show  ourselves  together  at  church  and  afterward  in  the 
sacristy." 

She  delivered  the  behest  in  her  sharp  imperative  key, 
the  tone  of  the  born  commander.  But  for  once  Garnett 
ventured  to  question  her  orders. 

"And  supposing  he  won't  come?" 

"He  must  if  he  cares  for  his  daughter's  happiness.  She 
can't  be  married  without  him." 

"Can't  be  married?" 

"The  French  are  like  that — especially  the  old  families. 
I  was  given  to  understand  at  once  that  my  husband  must 
appear — if  only  to  establish  the  fact  that  we're  not  di 
vorced." 

[62] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

uAh — you're  not,  then?"  escaped  from  Gannett. 

"Mercy  no!  Divorce  is  stupid.  They  don't  like  it  in 
Europe.  And  in  this  case  it  would  have  been  the  end  of 
Hermy's  marriage.  They  wouldn't  think  of  letting  their  son 
marry  the  child  of  divorced  parents." 

"How  fortunate,  then—" 

"Yes;  but  I  always  think  of  such  things  beforehand. 
And  of  course  I've  told  them  that  iny  husband  will  be 
present." 

"You  think  he  will  consent?" 

"No;  not  at  first;  but  you  must  make  him.  You  must 
tell  him  how  sweet  Hermione  is — and  you  must  see  Louis, 
and  be  able  to  describe  their  happiness.  You  must  dine  here 
to-night — he's  coming.  We're  all  dining  with  the  Hub- 
bards,  and  they  expect  you.  They've  given  Hermy  some 
very  good  diamonds — though  I  should  have  preferred  a 
cheque,  as  she'll  be  horribly  poor.  But  I  think  Kate  Hub- 
bard  means  to  do  something  about  the  trousseau — Hermy 
is  at  Paquin's  with  her  now.  You've  no  idea  how  delight 
ful  all  our  friends  have  been. — Ah,  here  is  one  of  them 
now,"  she  broke  off  smiling,  as  the  door  opened  to  admit, 
without  preliminary  announcement,  a  gentleman  so  glossy 
and  ancient,  with  such  a  fixed  unnatural  freshness  of  smile 
and  eye,  that  he  gave  Garnett  the  effect  of  having  been  em 
balmed  and  then  enamelled.  It  needed  not  the  exotic- 
looking  ribbon  in  the  visitor's  button-hole,  nor  Mrs. 
Newell's  introduction  of  him  as  her  friend  Baron  Schenk- 
[63] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

elderff,  to  assure  Garnett  of  his  connection  with  a  race  as 
ancient  as  his  appearance. 

Baron  Schenkelderff  greeted  his  hostess  with  paternal 
playfulness,  and  the  young  man  with  an  ease  which  might 
have  been  acquired  on  the  Stock  Exchange  and  in  the  dress 
ing-rooms  of  "leading  ladies."  He  spoke  a  faultless 
colourless  English,  from  which  one  felt  he  might  pass  with 
equal  mastery  to  half  a  dozen  other  languages.  He  in 
quired  patronisingly  for  the  excellent  Hubbards,  asked 
his  hostess  if  she  did  not  mean  to  give  him  a  drop  of  tea 
and  a  cigarette,  remarked  that  he  need  not  ask  if  Her- 
mione  was  still  closeted  with  the  dress-maker,  and,  on  the 
waiter's  coming  in  answer  to  his  ring,  ordered  the  tea  him 
self,  and  added  a  request  for  fine  champagne.  It  was  not  the 
first  time  that  Garnett  had  seen  such  minor  liberties  taken 
in  Mrs.  Newell's  drawing-room,  but  they  had  hitherto  been 
taken  by  persons  who  had  at  least  the  superiority  of  know 
ing  what  they  were  permitting  themselves,  whereas  the 
young  man  felt  almost  sure  that  Baron  SchenkelderfFs 
manner  was  the  most  distinguished  he  could  achieve;  and 
this  deepened  the  disgust  with  which,  as  the  minutes  passed, 
he  yielded  to  the  conviction  that  the  Baron  was  Mrs.  New- 
ell's  aunt. 


[64] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

IV 

/^ARNETT  had  always  foreseen  that  Mrs.  Newell 
^•^  might  some  day  ask  him  to  do  something  he  should 
greatly  dislike.  He  had  never  gone  so  far  as  to  conjecture 
what  it  might  be,  but  had  simply  felt  that  if  he  allowed  his 
acquaintance  with  her  to  pass  from  spectatorship  to  par 
ticipation  he  must  be  prepared  to  find  himself,  at  any 
moment,  in  a  queer  situation. 

The  moment  had  come;  and  he  was  relieved  to  find  that 
he  could  meet  it  by  refusing  her  request.  He  had  not  al 
ways  been  sure  that  she  would  leave  him  this  alternative. 
She  had  a  way  of  involving  people  in  her  complications 
without  their  being  aware  of  it;  and  Garnett  had  pictured 
himself  in  holes  so  tight  that  there  might  not  be  room  for 
a  wriggle.  Happily  in  this  case  he  could  still  move  freely. 
Nothing  compelled  him  to  act  as  an  intermediary  between 
Mrs.  Newell  and  her  husband,  and  it  was  preposterous  to 
suppose  that,  even  in  a  life  of  such  perpetual  upheaval  as 
hers,  there  were  no  roots  which  struck  deeper  than  her 
casual  intimacy  with  himself.  She  had  simply  laid  hands 
on  him  because  he  happened  to  be  within  reach,  and  he 
would  put  himself  out  of  reach  by  leaving  for  London  on 
the  morrow. 

Having  thus  inwardly  asserted  his  independence,  he 
felt  free  to  let  his  fancy  dwell  on  the  strangeness  of  the 
situation.  He  had  always  supposed  that  Mrs.  Newell,  in 
[65] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

her  flight  through  life,  must  have  thrown  a  good  many 
victims  to  the  wolves,  and  had  assumed  that  Mr.  Newell 
had  been  among  the  number.  That  he  had  been  dropped 
overboard  at  an  early  stage  in  the  lady's  career  seemed 
probable  from  the  fact  that  neither  his  wife  nor  his  daughter 
ever  mentioned  him.  Mrs.  Newell  was  incapable  of  reti 
cence,  and  if  her  husband  had  still  been  an  active  element 
in  her  life  he  would  certainly  have  figured  in  her  conversa 
tion.  Garnett,  if  he  thought  of  the  matter  at  all,  had  con 
cluded  that  divorce  must  long  since  have  eliminated  Mr. 
Newell;  but  he  now  saw  how  he  had  underrated  his 
,  friend's  faculty  for  using  up  the  waste  material  of  life.  She 
had  always  struck  him  as  the  most  extravagant  of  women, 
yet  it  turned  out  that  by  a  miracle  of  thrift  she  had  for 
years  kept  a  superfluous  husband  on  the  chance  that  he 
might  some  day  be  useful.  The  day  had  come,  and  Mr. 
Newell  was  to  be  called  from  his  obscurity.  Garnett 
wondered  what  had  become  of  him  in  the  interval,  and  in 
what  shape  he  would  respond  to  the  evocation.  The  fact 
that  his  wife  feared  he  might  not  respond  to  it  at  all  seemed 
to  show  that  his  exile  was  voluntary,  or  had  at  least  come 
to  appear  preferable  to  other  alternatives;  but  if  that  were 
the  case  it  was  curious  he  should  not  have  taken  legal 
means  to  free  himself.  He  could  hardly  have  had  his  wife's 
motives  for  wishing  to  maintain  the  vague  tie  between 
them;  but  conjecture  lost  itself  in  trying  to  picture  what 
his  point  of  view  was  likely  to  be,  and  Garnett,  on  his  way 
[66] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

to  the  Hubbards'  dinner  that  evening,  could  not  help  re 
gretting  that  circumstances  denied  him  the  opportunity  of 
meeting  so  enigmatic  a  person.  The  young  man's  knowl 
edge  of  Mrs.  NewelTs  methods  made  him  feel  that  her  hus 
band  might  be  an  interesting  study.  This,  however,  did 
not  affect  his  resolve  to  keep  clear  of  the  business.  He 
entered  the  Hubbards'  dining-room  with  the  firm  intention 
of  refusing  to  execute  Mrs.  Newell's  commission,  and  if  he 
changed  his  mind  in  the  course  of  the  evening  it  was  not 
owing  to  that  lady's  persuasions. 

Garnett's  curiosity  as  to  the  Hubbards'  share  in  Her- 
mione's  marriage  was  appeased  before  he  had  been  five 
minutes  at  their  table. 

Mrs.  Woolsey  Hubbard  was  an  expansive  blonde, 
whose  ample  but  disciplined  outline  seemed  the  result  of 
a  well-matched  struggle  between  her  cook  and  her  corset- 
maker.  She  talked  a  great  deal  of  what  was  appropriate  in 
dress  and  conduct,  and  seemed  to  regard  Mrs.  Newell  as 
a  final  arbiter  on  both  points.  To  do  or  to  wear  anything 
inappropriate  would  have  been  extremely  mortifying  to 
Mrs.  Hubbard,  and  she  was  evidently  resolved,  at  the  price 
of  eternal  vigilance,  to  prove  her  familiarity  with  what  she 
frequently  referred  to  as  "the  right  thing."  Mr.  Hubbard 
appeared  to  have  no  such  preoccupations.  Garnett,  if 
called  on  to  describe  him,  would  have  done  so  by  say 
ing  that  he  was  the  American  who  always  pays.  The 
young  man,  in  the  course  of  his  foreign  wanderings,  had 
[67] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

come  across  many  fellow-citizens  of  Mr.  Hubbard's  type' 
in  the  most  diverse  company  and  surroundings;  and  wher 
ever  they  were  to  be  found,  they  always  had  their  hands 
in  their  pockets.  Mr.  Hubbard's  standard  of  gentility 
was  the  extent  of  a  man's  capacity  to  "foot  the  bill";  and 
as  no  one  but  an  occasional  compatriot  cared  to  dispute 
the  privilege  with  him  he  seldom  had  reason  to  doubt  his 
social  superiority. 

Garnett,  nevertheless,  did  not  believe  that  this  lavish 
pair  were,  as  Mrs.  Newell  would  have  phrased  it,  "putting 
up"  Hermione's  dot.  They  would  go  very  far  in  diamonds 
but  they  would  hang  back  from  securities.  Their  readiness 
to  pay  was  indefinably  mingled  with  a  dread  of  being  ex 
pected  to,  and  their  prodigalities  would  take  flight  at  the 
first  hint  of  coercion.  Mrs.  Newell,  who  had  had  a  good 
deal  of  experience  in  managing  this  type  of  millionaire, 
could  be  trusted  not  to  arouse  their  susceptibilities,  and 
Garnett  was  therefore  certain  that  the  chimerical  legacy 
tad  been  extracted  from  other  pockets.  There  were  none 
in  view  but  those  of  Baron  Schenkelderff,  who,  seated  at 
Mrs.  Hubbard's  right,  with  a  new  order  in  his  button 
hole,  and  a  fresh  glaze  upon  his  features,  enchanted  that 
lady  by  his  careless  references  to  crowned  heads  and  his 
condescending  approval  of  the  champagne.  Garnett  was 
more  than  ever  certain  that  it  was  the  Baron  who  was 
paying;  and  it  was  this  conviction  which  made  him  sud 
denly  resolve  that,  at  any  cost,  Hermione's  marriage  must 
[68] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

take  place.  He  had  felt  no  special  interest  in  the  marriage 
except  as  one  more  proof  of  Mrs.  Newell's  extraordinary 
capacity;  but  now  it  appealed  to  him  from  the  girl's  own 
stand-point.  For  he  saw,  with  a  touch  of  compunction, 
that  in  the  mephitic  air  of  her  surroundings  a  love-story 
of  miraculous  freshness  had  flowered.  He  had  only  to 
intercept  the  glances  which  the  young  couple  exchanged 
to  find  himself  transported  to  the  candid  region  of  romance. 
It  was  evident  that  Hermione  adored  and  was  adored; 
that  the  lovers  believed  in  each  other  and  in  every  one 
about  them,  and  that  even  the  legacy  of  the  defunct  aunt 
had  not  been  too  great  a  strain  on  their  faith  in  human 
nature. 

His  first  glance  at  the  Comte  Louis  du  Trayas  showed 
Garnett  that,  by  some  marvel  of  fitness,  Hermione  had 
happened  on  a  kindred  nature.  If  the  young  man's  long 
mild  features  and  short-sighted  glance  revealed  no  special 
force  of  character,  they  showed  a  benevolence  and  sim 
plicity  as  incorruptible  as  her  own,  and  declared  that  their 
,  possessor,  whatever  his  failings,  would  never  imperil  the 
illusions  she  had  so  wondrously  preserved.  The  fact  that 
the  girl  took  her  good  fortune  naturally,  and  did  not  re 
gard  herself  as  suddenly  snatched  from  the  jaws  of  death, 
added  poignancy  to  the  situation;  for  if  she  missed  this 
way  of  escape,  and  was  thrown  back  on  her  former  life, 
the  day  of  discovery  could  not  be  long  deferred.  It  made 
Garnett  shiver  to  think  of  her  growing  old  between  her 
[69] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

mother  and  Schenkelderff,  or  such  successors  of  the  Baron's 
as  might  probably  attend  on  Mrs.  Newell's  waning  fortunes; 
for  it  was  clear  to  him  that  the  Baron  marked  the  first  stage 
in  his  friend's  decline.  When  Garnett  took  leave  that  even 
ing  he  had  promised  Mrs.  Newell  that  he  would  try  to  find 
her  husband. 


TF  Mr.  Newell  read  in  the  papers  the  announcement  of 
A  his  daughter's  marriage  it  did  not  cause  him  to  lift  the 
veil  of  seclusion  in  which  his  wife  represented  him  as 
shrouded. 

A  round  of  the  American  banks  in  Paris  failed  to  give 
Garnett  his  address,  and  it  was  only  in  chance  talk  with 
one  of  the  young  secretaries  of  the  Embassy  that  he  was 
put  on  Mr.  Newell's  track.  The  secretary's  father,  it  ap 
peared,  had  known  the  Newells  some  twenty  years  earlier. 
He  had  had  business  relations  with  Mr.  Newell,  who  was 
then  a  man  of  property,  with  factories  or  something  of  the 
kind,  the  narrator  thought,  somewhere  in  Western  New 
York.  There  had  been  at  this  period,  for  Mrs.  Newell,  a 
phase  of  large  hospitality  and  showy  carriages  in  Wash 
ington  and  at  Narragansett.  Then  her  husband  had  had 
reverses,  had  lost  heavily  in  Wall  Street,  and  had  finally 
drifted  abroad  and  disappeared  from  sight.  The  young 
man  did  not  know  at  what  point  in  his  financial  decline 
Mr.  Newell  had  parted  company  with  his  wife  and  daugh- 
[70] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

ter;  "though  you  may  bet  your  hat,"  he  philosophically 
concluded,  "that  the  old  girl  hung  on  as  long  as  there 
were  any  pickings."  He  did  not  himself  know  Mr.  Newell's 
address,  but  opined  that  it  might  be  extracted  from  a 
certain  official  of  the  Consulate,  if  Garnett  could  give  a 
sufficiently  good  reason  for  the  request;  and  here  in  fact 
Mrs.  Newell's  emissary  learned  that  her  husband  was 
to  be  found  in  an  obscure  street  of  the  Luxembourg 
quarter. 

In  order  to.  be  near  the  scene  of  action,  Garnett  went  to 
breakfast  at  his  usual  haunt,  determined  to  despatch  his 
business  as  early  in  the  day  as  politeness  allowed.  The 
head  waiter  welcomed  him  to  a  table  near  that  of  the  trans 
atlantic  sage,  who  sat  in  his  customary  corner,  his  head 
tilted  back  against  the  blistered  mirror  at  an  angle  suggest 
ing  that  in  a  freer  civilisation  his  feet  would  have  sought 
the  same  level.  He  greeted  Garnett  affably  and  the  two  ex 
changed  their  usual  generalisations  on  life  till  the  sage  rose 
to  go;  whereupon  it  occurred  to  Garnett  to  accompany  him. 
His  friend  took  the  offer  in  good  part,  merely  remark 
ing  that  he  was  going  to  the  Luxembourg  gardens,  where  it 
was  his  invariable  habit,  on  good  days,  to  feed  the  spar 
rows  with  the  remains  of  his  breakfast  roll;  and  Garnett 
replied  that,  as  it  happened,  his  own  business  lay  in  the 
same  direction. 

"Perhaps,  by  the  way,"  he  added,  "you  can  tell  me  how 
to  find  the  rue  Panonceaux,  where  I  must  go  presently. 
[71] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

I  thought  I  knew  this  quarter  fairly  well,  but  I  have  never 
heard  of  it." 

His  companion  came  to  a  halt  on  the  'narrow  pave 
ment,  to  the  confusion  of  the  dense  and  desultory  traffic 
which  flows  through  the  old  streets  of  the  Latin  quarter. 
He  fixed  his  mild  eye  on  Garnett  and  gave  a  twist  to  the 
cigar  which  lingered  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth. 

"The  rue  Panonceaux  ?  It  is  an  out-of-the-way  hole,  but 
I  can  tell  you  how  to  find  it,"  he  answered. 

He  made  no  motion  to  do  so,  however,  but  continued  to 
bend  on  the  young  man  the  full  force  of  his  interrogative 
gaze;  then  he  added:  "Would  you  mind  telling  me  your 
object  in  going  there  ?" 

Garnett  looked  at  him  with  surprise:  a  question  so  un- 
blushingly  personal  was  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  his 
friend's  usual  attitude  of  detachment.  Before  he  could  re 
ply,  however,  the  other  had  continued:  "Do  you  happen 
to  be  in  search  of  Samuel  C.  Newell?" 

"Why,  yes,  I  am,"  said  Garnett  with  a  start  of  conjecture. 

His  companion  uttered  a  sigh.  "I  supposed  so,"  he  said 
resignedly;  "and  in  that  case,"  he  added,  "we  may  as 
well  have  the  matter  out  in  the  Luxembourg." 

Garnett  had  halted  before  him  with  deepening  aston 
ishment.  "But  you  don't  mean  to  tell  me — ?"  he  stam 
mered. 

The  little  man  made  a  motion  of  assent.  "I  am  Samuel 
C.  Newell,"  he  said;  "and  if  you  have  no  objection,  I  pre- 
[721 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

fer  not  to  break  through  my  habit  of  feeding  the  sparrows. 
We  are  five  minutes  late  as  it  is." 

He  quickened  his  pace  without  awaiting  a  reply  from 
Garnett,  who  walked  beside  him  in  unsubdued  wonder  till 
they  reached  the  Luxembourg  gardens,  where  Mr.  Newell, 
making  for  one  of  the  less  frequented  alleys,  seated  him 
self  on  a  bench  and  drew  the  fragment  of  a  roll  from  his 
pocket.  His  coming  was  evidently  expected,  for  a  shower 
of  little  dusky  bodies  at  once  descended  on  him,  and  the 
gravel  fluttered  with  battling  beaks  and  wings  as  he  dis 
tributed  his  dole. 

It  was  not  till  the  ground  was  white  with  crumbs,  and 
the  first  frenzy  of  his  pensioners  appeased,  that  he  turned 
to  Garnett  and  said:  "I  presume,  sir,  that  you  come  from 
my  wife." 

Garnett  coloured  with  embarrassment:  the  more  simply 
the  old  man  took  his  mission  the  more  complicated  it  ap 
peared  to  himself. 

"From  your  wife — and  from  Miss  Newell,"  he  said  at 
length.  "You  have  perhaps  heard  that  your  daughter  is 
to  be  married." 

"Oh,  yes— I  read  the  Herald  pretty  faithfully,"  said 
Miss  Newell's  parent,  shaking  out  another  handful  of 
crumbs. 

Garnett  cleared  his  throat.  "Then  you  have  no  doubt 
thought  it  natural  that,  under  the  circumstances,  they 

should  wish  to  communicate  with  you." 
[73] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

The  sage  continued  to  fix  his  attention  on  the  sparrows. 
"My  wife,"  he  remarked,  "might  have  written  to  me." 

"Mrs.  Newell  was  afraid  she  might  not  hear  from  you 
in  reply." 

"In  reply?  Why  should  she?  I  suppose  she  merely 
wishes  to  announce  the  marriage.  She  knows  I  have  no 
money  left  to  buy  wedding- presents,"  said  Mr.  Newell 
astonishingly. 

Garnett  felt  his  colour  deepen:  he  had  a  vague  sense 
of  standing  as  the  representative  of  something  guilty  and 
enormous,  with  which  he  had  rashly  identified  himself. 

"I  don't  think  you  understand,"  he  said.  "Mrs.  Newell 
and  your  daughter  have  asked  me  to  see  you  because 
they're  are  anxious  that  you  should  consent  to  appear  at 
the  wedding." 

Mr.  Newell,  at  this,  ceased  to  give  his  attention  to  the 
birds,  and  turned  a  compassionate  gaze  on  Garnett. 

"My  dear  sir — I  don't  know  your  name — "  he  remarked, 
"would  you  mind  telling  me  how  long  you've  been  ac 
quainted  with  Mrs.  Newell?"  And  without  waiting  for  an 
answer  he  added:  "If  you  wait  long  enough  she  will  ask 
you  to  do  some  very  disagreeable  things  for  her." 

This  echo  of  his  own  thoughts  gave  Garnett  a  twinge 
of  discomfort,  but  he  made  shift  to  answer  good-humour- 
edly:  "If  you  refer  to  my  present  errand,  I  must  tell  you 
that  I  don't  find  it  disagreeable  to  do  anything  which  may 
be  of  service  to  Miss  Hermione." 
[74] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

Mr.  Newell  fumbled  in  his  pocket,  as  though  searching 
unavailingly  for  another  morsel  of  bread;  then  he  said: 
''From  her  point  of  view  I  shall  not  be  the  most  important 
person  at  the  ceremony." 

Garnett  smiled.  "That  is  hardly  a  reason — "  he  began; 
but  he  was  checked  by  the  brevity  of  tone  with  which  his 
companion  replied:  "I  am  not  aware  that  I  am  called  upon 
to  give  you  my  reasons." 

"You  are  certainly  not,"  the  young  man  rejoined, 
"except  in  so  far  as  you  are  willing  to  consider  me  as  the 
messenger  of  your  wife  and  daughter." 

"Oh,  I  accept  your  credentials,"  said  the  other  with  his 
dry  smile;  "what  I  don't  recognise  is  their  right  to  send  a 
message." 

This  reduced  Garnett  to  silence,  and  after  a  moment's 
pause  Mr.  Newell  drew  his  watch  from  his  pocket. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  cut  the  conversation  short,  but  my  days  are 
mapped  out  with  a  certain  regularity,  and  this  is  the  hour 
for  my  nap."  He  rose  as  he  spoke  and  held  out  his  hand 
with  a  glint  of  melancholy  humour  in  his  small  clear  eyes. 

"You  dismiss  me,  then  ?  I  am  to  take  back  a  refusal?" 
the  young  man  exclaimed. 

"My  dear  sir,  those  ladies  have  got  on  very  well  without 
me  for  a  number  of  years :  I  imagine  they  can  put  through 
this  wedding  without  my  help." 

"You're  mistaken,  then;  if  it  were  not  for  that  I  shouldn't 
have  undertaken  this  errand." 
[75] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

Mr.  Newell  paused  as  he  was  turning  away.  "Not  for 
what?"  he  inquired. 

"The  fact  that,  as  it  happens,  the  wedding  can't  be  put 
through  without  your  help." 

Mr.  Newell's  thin  lips  formed  a  noiseless  whistle. 
"They've  got  to  have  my  consent,  have  they?  Well,  is  he 
a  good  young  man  ?  " 

"The  bridegroom?"  Garnett  echoed  in  surprise.  "I 
hear  the  best  accounts  of  him — and  Miss  Newell  is  very 
much  in  love." 

Her  parent  met  this  with  an  odd  smile.  "Well,  then,  I 
give  my  consent — it's  all  I've  got  left  to  give,"  he  added 
philosophically. 

Garnett  hesitated.  "But  if  you  consent — if  you  ap 
prove — why  do  you  refuse  your  daughter's  request?" 

Mr.  Newell  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "Ask  Mrs. 
Newell!"  he  said.  And  as  Garnett  was  again  silent,  he 
turned  away  with  a  slight  gesture  of  leave-taking. 

But  in  an  instant  the  young  man  was  at  his  side.  "I  will 
not  ask  your  reasons,  sir,"  he  said,  "but  I  will  give  you 
mine  for  being  here.  Miss  Newell  cannot  be  married  unless 
you  are  present  at  the  ceremony.  The  young  man's  parents 
know  that  she  has  a  father  living,  and  they  give  their  con 
sent  only  on  condition  that  he  appears  at  her  marriage. 
I  believe  it  is  customary  in  old  French  families — " 

"Old  French  families  be  damned!"  said  Mr.  Newell. 
"She  had  better  marry  an  American."  And  he  made  a 
[76] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

more  decided  motion  to  free  himself  from  Garnett's  im 
portunities. 

But  his  resistance  only  strengthened  the  young  man's. 
The  more  unpleasant  the  latter's  task  became,  the  more 
unwilling  he  grew  to  see  his  efforts  end  in  failure.  During 
the  three  days  which  had  been  consumed  in  his  quest  it 
had  become  clear  to  him  that  the  bridegroom's  parents, 
having  been  surprised  to  a  reluctant  consent,  were  but  too 
ready  to  withdraw  it  on  the  plea  of  Mr.  Newell's  non- 
appearance.  Mrs.  Newell,  on  the  last  edge  of  tension,  had 
confided  to  Garnett  that  the  Morningfields  were  "being 
nasty";  and  he  could  picture  the  wrhole  powerful  clan, 
on  both  sides  of  the  Channel,  arrayed  in  a  common  re 
solve  to  exclude  poor  Hermione  from  their  ranks.  The 
very  inequality  of  the  contest  stirred  his  blood,  and  made 
him  vow  that  in  this  case  at  least  the  sins  of  the  parents 
should  not  be  visited  on  the  children.  In  his  talk  with  the 
young  secretary  he  had  obtained  certain  glimpses  of  Baron 
Schenkelderff's  past  that  fortified  this  resolve.  The 
Baron,  at  one  time  a  familiar  figure  in  a  much-observed 
London  set,  had  been  mixed  up  in  an  ugly  money-lending 
business  ending  in  suicide,  which  had  excluded  him  from 
the  society  most  accessible  to  his  race.  His  alliance  with 
Mrs.  Newell  was  doubtless  a  desperate  attempt  at  rehabili 
tation,  a  forlorn  hope  on  both  sides,  but  likely  to  be  an  en 
during  tie  because  it  represented,  to  both  partners,  their 
last  chance  of  escape  from  social  extinction.  That  Her- 
[77] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

mione's  marriage  was  a  mere  stake  in  their  game  did  not 
in  the  least  affect  Garnett's  view  of  its  urgency.  If  on  their 
part  it  was  a  sordid_s£eculation,  to  her  it  had  the  freshness 
of  the  first  wooing.  If  it  made  of  her  a  mere  pawn  in  their 
hands,  it  would  put  her,  so  Garnett  hoped,  beyond  farther 
risk  of  such  base  uses;  and  to  achieve  this  had  become  a 
necessity  to  him. 

The  sense  that,  if  he  lost  sight  of  Mr.  Newell,  the  latter 
might  not  easily  be  found  again,  nerved  Garnett  to  hold  his 
ground  in  spite  of  the  resistance  he  encountered;  and  he 
tried  to  put  the  full  force  of  his  plea  into  the  tone  with  which 
he  cried:  "Ah,  you  don't  know  your  daughter!" 


VI 


~\  >TRS.  NEWELL,  that  afternoon,  met  him  on  the 
-*••*•  threshold  of  her  sitting-room  with  a  "Well?"  of 
pent-up  anxiety. 

In  the  room  itself,  Baron  Schenkelderff  sat  with  crossed 
legs  and  head  thrown  back,  in  an  attitude  which  he  did 
not  see  fit  to  alter  at  the  young  man's  approach. 

Garnett  hesitated;  but  it  was  not  the  summariness  of 
the  Baron's  greeting  which  he  resented. 

"You've  found  him?"  Mrs.  Newell  exclaimed. 

"Yes;  but—" 

She  followed  his  glance  and  answered  it  with  a  slight 
shrug.  "I  can't  take  you  into  my  room,  because  there's  a 
[78] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

dress-maker  there,  and  she  won't  go  because  she's  waiting 
to  be  paid.  Schenkelderff,"  she  exclaimed,  "you're  not 
wanted;  please  go  and  look  out  of  the  window." 

The  Baron  rose,  and,  lighting  a  cigarette,  laughingly 
retired  to  the  embrasure.  Mrs.  Newell  flung  herself  down 
and  signed  to  Garnett  to  take  a  seat  at  her  side. 

"Well— you've  found  him?   You've  talked  with  him?" 

"Yes;  I've  talked  with  him — for  an  hour." 

She  made  an  impatient  movement.  "That's  too  long! 
Does  he  refuse?" 

"He  doesn't  consent." 

"Then  you  mean—?" 

"He  wants  time  to  think  it  over." 

"Time?  There  is  no  time — did  you  tell  him  so?" 

"•I  told  him  so;  but  you  must  remember  that  he  has 
plenty.  He  has  taken  twenty-four  hours." 

Mrs.  Newell  groaned.  "Oh,  that's  too  much.  When  he 
thinks  things  over  he  always  refuses." 

"Well,  he  would  have  refused  at  once  if  I  had  not 
agreed  to  the  delay." 

She  rose  nervously  from  her  seat  and  pressed  her  hands 
to  her  forehead.  "It's  too  hard,  after  all  I've  done!  The 
trousseau  is  ordered — think  how  disgraceful!  You  must 
have  managed  him  badly;  I'll  go  and  see  him  my 
self." 

The  Baron,  at  this,  turned  abruptly  from  his  study  of 
the  Place  Vendome. 

[791 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

"My  dear  creature,  for  heaven's  sake  don't  spoil  every 
thing!"  he  exclaimed. 

Mrs.  Newell  coloured  furiously.  "What's  the  meaning 
of  that  brilliant  speech  ?  " 

"I  was  merely  putting  myself  in  the  place  of  a  man  on 
whom  you  have  ceased  to  smile." 

He  picked  up  his  hat  and  stick,  nodded  knowingly  to 
Garnett,  and  walked  toward  the  door  with  an  air  of  creak 
ing  jauntiness. 

But  on  the  threshold  Mrs.  Newell  waylaid  him. 

"Don't  go — I  must  speak  to  you,"  she  said,  following 
him  into  the  ante-chamber;  and  Garnett  remembered  the 
dress-maker  who  was  not  to  be  dislodged  from  her  bed 
room. 

In  a  moment  Mrs.  Newell  returned,  with  a  small  flat 
packet  which  she  vainly  sought  to  dissemble  in  an  inaccessi 
ble  pocket. 

"He  makes  everything  too  odious!"  she  exclaimed;  but 
whether  she  referred  to  her  husband  or  the  Baron  it  was 
left  to  Garnett  to  decide. 

She  sat  silent,  nervously  twisting  her  cigarette-case  be 
tween  her  fingers,  while  her  visitor  rehearsed  the  details 
of  his  conversation  with  Mr.  Newell.  He  did  not  indeed 
tell  her  the  arguments  he  had  used  to  shake  her  husband's 
resolve,  since  in  his  eloquent  sketch  of  Hermione's  situa 
tion  there  had  perforce  entered  hints  unflattering  to  her 
mother;  but  he  gave  the  impression  that  his  hearer  had 
[80] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

in  the  end  been  moved,  and  for  that  reason  had  consented 
to  defer  his  refusal. 

"Ah,  it's  not  that1 — it's  to  prolong  our  misery!"  Mrs. 
Newell  exclaimed;  and  after  a  moment  she  added  drear 
ily:  "He's  been  waiting  for  such  an  opportunity  for 
years." 

It  seemed  needless  for  Garnett  to  protract  his  visit,  and 
he  took  leave  with  the  promise  to  report  at  once  the  result 
of  his  final  talk  with  Mr.  Newell.  But  as  he  was  passing 
through  the  ante-chamber  a  side  door  opened  and  Hermione 
stood  before  him.  Her  face  was  flushed  and  shaken  out  of 
its  usual  repose,  and  he  saw  at  once  that  she  had  been 
waiting  for  him. 

"Mr.  Garnett!"  she  said  in  a  whisper. 

He  paused,  considering  her  with  surprise:  he  had  never 
supposed  her  capable  of  such  emotion  as  her  voice  and  eyes 
revealed. 

"I  want  to  speak  to  you;  we  are  quite  safe  here.  Mamma 
is  with  the  dress-maker,"  she  explained,  closing  the  door 
behind  her,  while  Garnett  laid  aside  his  hat  and  stick. 

"I  am  at  your  service,"  he  said. 

"You  have  seen  my  father?  Mamma  told  me  that  you 
were  to  see  him  to-day,"  the  girl  went  on,  standing  close 
to  him  in  order  that  she  might  not  have  to  raise  her  voice. 

"Yes;  I've  seen  him,"  Garnett  replied  with  increas 
ing  wonder.  Hermione  had  never  before  mentioned  her 
father  to  him,  and  it  was  by  a  slight  stretch  of  veracity 
[81] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

that  he  had  included  her  name  in  her  mother's  plea  to 
Mr.  Newell.  He  had  supposed  her  to  be  either  unconscious 
of  the  transaction,  or  else  too  much  engrossed  in  her  own 
happiness  to  give  it  a  thought;  and  he  had  forgiven  her  the 
last  alternative  in  consideration  of  the  abnormal  character 

of  her  filial  relations.  Bu  het  how  saw  that  he  must  read- 

\*S 
just  his  view  of  her. 

"You  went  to  ask  him  to  come  to  my  wedding;  I  know 
about  it,"  Hermione  continued.  "Of  course  it's  the  cus 
tom — people  will  think  it  odd  if  he  does  not  come."  She 
paused,  and  then  asked:  "Does  he  consent?" 

"No;  he  has  not  yet  consented." 

"Ah,  I  thought  so  when  I  saw  Mamma  just  now!" 

"  But  he  hasn't  quite  refused — he  has  promised  to  think 
it  over." 

"But  he  hated  it— he  hated  the  idea?" 

Garnett  hesitated.  "It  seemed  to  arouse  painful  associa 
tions." 

"Ah,  it  would — it  would!"  she  exclaimed. 
| 

He  was  astonished  at  the  passion  of  her  accent;  aston 
ished  still  more  at  the  tone  with  which  she  went  on,  lay 
ing  her  hand  on  his  arm:  "Mr.  Garnett,  he  must  not  be 
asked — he  has  been  asked  too  often  to  do  things  that  he 
hated!" 

{     Garnett  looked  at  the  girl  with  a  shock  of  awe.  What 
abysses  of  knowledge  did  her  purity  hide? 
"But,  my  dear  Miss  Hermione — "  he  began. 
[82] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

"I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say,"  she  interrupted 
him.  "It  is  necessary  that  he  should  be  present  at  the 
marriage,  or  the  du  Trayas  will  break  it  off.  They  don't 
want  it  very  much,  at  any  rate,"  she  added  with  a  strange 
candour,  "and  they'll  not  be  sorry,  perhaps — for  of  course 
Louis  would  have  to  obey  them." 

"So  I  explained  to  your  father,"  Garnett  assured  her. 

"Yes — yes;  I  knew  you  would  put  it  to  him.  But  that 
makes  no  difference.  He  must  not  be  forced  to  come  un 
willingly." 

"But  if  he  sees  the  point — after  all,  no  one  can  force 
him!" 

"No;  but  if  it's  painful  to  him — if  it  reminds  him  too 
much.  .  .  .  Oh,  Mr.  Garnett,  I  was  not  a  child  when  he 
left  us.  ...  I  was  old  enough  to  see  ...  to  see  how  it  must 
hurt  him  even  now  to  be  reminded.  Peace  was  all  he  asked 
for,  and  I  want  him  to  be  left  in  peace!" 

Garnett  paused  in  deep  embarrassment.  "My  dear 
child,  there  is  no  need  to  remind  you  that  your  own 
future—" 

She  had  a  gesture  that  recalled  her  mother.  "My  future 
must  take  care  of  itself;  he  must  not  be  made  to  see  us!" 
she  said  imperatively.  And  as  Garnett  remained  silent  she 
went  on:  "I  have  always  hoped  he  didn't  hate  me,  but 
he  would  hate  me  now  if  he  were  forced  to  see  me." 

"Not  if  he  could  see  you  at  this  moment!" 

She  lifted  her  face  with  swimming  eyes. 
[83] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

"Well,  go  to  him,  then;  tell  him  what  I've  said  to 
you ! " 

Garnett  continued  to  stand  before  her,  deeply  struck. 
"It  might  be  the  best  thing,"  he  reflected  inwardly;  but 
he  did  not  give  utterance  to  the  thought.  He  merely  put 
out  his  hand,  holding  Hermione's  in  a  long  pressure. 

"I  will  do  whatever  you  wish,"  he  replied. 

"You  understand  that  I'm  in   earnest?"    she   urged. 

"I'm  quite  sure  of  it." 

"Then  I  want  you  to  repeat  to  him  what  I've  said — 
I  want  him  to  be  left  undisturbed.  I  don't  want  him  ever 
to  hear  of  us  again!" 

The  next  day,  at  the  appointed  hour,  Garnett  resorted 
to  the  Luxembourg  gardens,  which  Mr.  Newell  had  named 
as  a  meeting-place  in  preference  to  his  own  lodgings.  It 
was  clear  that  he  did  not  wish  to  admit  the  young  man 
any  farther  into  his  privacy  than  the  occasion  required, 
and  the  extreme  shabbiness  of  his  dress  hinted  that  pride 
might  be  the  cause  of  his  reluctance. 

Garnett  found  him  feeding  the  sparrows,  but  he  desisted 
at  the  young  man's  approach,  and  said  at  once:  "You  won't 
thank  me  for  bringing  you  all  this  distance." 

"If  that  means  that  you're  going  to  send  me  away  with 
a  refusal,  I  have  come  to  spare  you  the  necessity,"  Garnett 
answered. 

Mr.  Newell  turned  on  him  a  glance  of  undisguised 
[84] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

wonder,  in  which  a  tinge  of  disappointment  might  almost 
have  been  detected. 

"Ah — they've  got  no  use  for  me,  after  all?"  he  said 
ironically. 

Garnett,  in  reply,  related  without  comment  his  conver 
sation  with  Hermione,  and  the  message  with  which  she 
had  charged  him.  He  remembered  her  words  exactly  and 
repeated  them  without  modification,  heedless  of  what  they 
implied  or  revealed. 

Mr.  Newell  listened  with  an  immovable  face,  occasion 
ally  casting  a  crumb  to  his  flock.  When  Garnett  ended  he 
asked:  "Does  her  mother  know  of  this?" 

"Assuredly  not!"  cried  Garnett  with  a  movement  of 
disgust. 

"You  must  pardon  me;  but  Mrs.  Newell  is  a  very  in 
genious  woman."  Mr.  Newell  shook  out  his  remaining 
crumbs  and  turned  thoughtfully  toward  Garnett. 

"You  believe  it's  quite  clear  to  Hermione  that  these 
people  will  use  my  refusal  as  a  pretext  for  backing  out  of 
the  marriage?" 

"Perfectly  clear— she  told  me  so  herself." 

"Doesn't  she  consider  the  young  man  rather  chicken- 
hearted?" 

"No;  he  has  already  put  up  a  big  fight  for  her,  and  you 
know  the  French  look  at  these  things  differently.  He's  only 
twei/v-three,  and  his  marrying  against  his  parents'  ap 
proval  i~  '"  itself  an  act  of  heroism." 
[85] 

' 


THE    LAST   ASSET 

"Yes;  I  believe  they  look  at  it  that  way,"  Mr.  Newell 
assented.  He  rose  and  picked  up  the  half-smoked  cigar 
which  he  had  laid  on  the  bench  beside  him. 

"What  do  they  wear  at  these  French  weddings,  any 
how?  A  dress-suit,  isn't  it?"  he  asked. 

The  question  was  such  a  surprise  to  Garnett  that  for 
the  moment  he  could  only  stammer  out — "You  consent 
then  ?  I  may  go  and  tell  her  ?" 

"You  may  tell  my  girl — yes."  He  gave  a  vague  laugh 
and  added:  "One  way  or  another,  my  wife  always  gets 
what  she  wants." 


VII 


It  yTR.  NEWELL'S  consent  brought  with  it  no  accom- 
panying  concessions.  In  the  first  flush  of  his  suc 
cess  Garnett  had  pictured  himself  as  bringing  together 
the  father  and  daughter,  and  hovering  in  an  attitude  of 
benediction  over  a  family  group  in  which  Mrs.  Newell  did 
not  very  distinctly  figure. 

But  Mr.  Newell's  conditions  were  inflexible.  He  would 
"see  the  thing  through"  for  his  daughter's  sake;  but  he 
stipulated  that  in  the  meantime  there  should  be  no  meet 
ings  or  farther  communications  of  any  kind.  He  agreed  to 
be  ready  when  Garnett  called  for  him,  at  the  appointed 
hour  on  the  wedding-day;  but  until  then  he  begged  fo  be 
left  alone.  To  this  decision  he  adhered  immov^  ^iy,  and 
[86] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

when  Garnett  conveyed  it  to  Hermione  she  accepted  it 
with  a  deep  look  of  understanding.  As  for  Mrs.  Newell  she 
was  too  much  engrossed  in  the  nuptial  preparations  to  give 
her  husband  another  thought.  She  had  gained  her  point, 
she  had  disarmed  her  foes,  and  in  the  first  flush  of  success 
she  had  no  time  to  remember  by  what  means  her  victory 
had  been  won.  Even  Garnett's  services  received  little  recog 
nition,  unless  he  found  them  sufficiently  compensated  by 
the  new  look  in  Hermione 's  eyes. 

The  principal  figures  in  Mrs.  Ne well's  foreground  were 
the  Woolsey  Hubbards  and  Baron  Schenkelderff.  With 
these  she  was  in  hourly  consultation,  and  Mrs.  Hubbard 
went  about  aureoled  with  the  importance  of  her  close  con 
nection  with  an  "aristocratic  marriage,"  and  dazzled  by 
the  Baron's  familiarity  with  the  intricacies  of  the  Almanach 
de  Gotha.  In  his  society  and  Mrs.  Newell's,  Mrs.  Hub- 
bard  evidently  felt  that  she  had  penetrated  to  the  sacred 
precincts  where  "the  right  thing"  flourished  in  its  native 
soil.  As  for  Hermione,  her  look  of  happiness  had  returned, 
but  with  an  undertint  of  melancholy,  visible  perhaps  only 
to  Garnett,  but  to  him  always  hauntingly  present.  Out 
wardly  she  sank  back  into  her  passive  self,  resigned  to 
serve  as  the  brilliant  lay-figure  on  which  Mrs.  Newell 
hung  the  trophies  of  conquest.  Preparations  for  the  wed 
ding  were  zealously  pressed.  Mrs.  Newell  knew  the  dan 
ger  of  giving  people  time  to  think  things  over,  and  her 
fears  about  her  husband  being  allayed,  she  began  to 
[87] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

dread  a  new  attempt  at  evasion  on  the  part  of  the  bride 
groom's  family. 

"The  sooner  it's  over  the  sounder  I  shall  sleep!"  she 
declared  to  Garnett;  and  all  the  mitigations  of  art  could 
not  conceal  the  fact  that  she  was  desperately  in  need  of 
that  restorative.  There  were  moments,  indeed,  when  he 
was  sorrier  for  her  than  for  her  husband  or  her  daughter; 
so  black  and  unfathomable  appeared  the  abyss  into  which 
she  must  slip  back  if  she  lost  her  hold  on  this  last  spar  of 
safety. 

But  she  did  not  lose  her  hold;  his  own  experience,  as 
well  as  her  husband's  declaration,  might  have  told  him  that 
she  always  got  what  she  wanted.  How  much  she  had 
wanted  this  particular  thing  was  shown  by  the  way  in 
which,  on  the  last  day,  when  all  peril  was  over,  she  bloomed 
out  in  renovated  splendour.  It  gave  Garnett  a  shivering 
sense  of  the  ugliness  of  the  alternative  which  had  confronted 
her. 

The  day  came;  the  showy  coupe  provided  by  Mrs. 
Newell  presented  itself  punctually  at  Garnett's  door,  and 
the  young  man  entered  it  and  drove  to  the  rue  Panon- 
ceaux.  It  was  a  little  melancholy  back  street,  with  lean  old 
houses  sweating  rust  and  damp,  and  glimpses  of  pit-like 
gardens,  black  and  sunless,  between  walls  bristling  with 
iron  spikes.  On  the  narrow  pavement  a  blind  man  pottered 
along  led  by  a  red-eyed  poodle:  a  little  farther  on  a  di 
shevelled  woman  sat  grinding  coffee  on  the  threshold  of 
[88] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

a  buvette.  The  bridal  carriage  stopped  before  one  of 
the  doorways,  with  a  clatter  of  hoofs  and  harness  which 
drew  the  neighbourhood  to  its  windows,  and  Garnett 
started  to  mount  the  ill-smelling  stairs  to  the  fourth  floor, 
on  which  he  learned  from  the  concierge  that  Mr.  Newell 
lodged.  But  half-way  up  he  met  the  latter  descending, 
and  they  turned  and  went  down  together. 

Hermione's  parent  wore  his  usual  imperturbable  look, 
and  his  eye  seemed  as  full  as  ever  of  generalisations  on 
human  folly;  but  there  was  something  oddly  shrunken 
and  submerged  in  his  appearance,  as  though  he  had  grown 
smaller  or  his  clothes  larger.  And  on  the  last  hypothesis 
Garnett  paused — for  it  became  evident  to  him  that  Mr. 
Newell  had  hired  his  dress-suit. 

Seated  at  the  young  man's  side  on  the  satin  cushions, 
he  remained  silent  while  the  carriage  rolled  smoothly  and 
rapidly  through  the  net-work  of  streets  leading  to  the 
Boulevard  Saint-Germain;  only  once  he  remarked,  glanc 
ing  at  the  elaborate  fittings  of  the  coupe:  "Is  this  Mrs. 
Newell's  carriage  ?  " 

"I  believe  so — yes,"  Garnett  assented,  with  the  guilty 
sense  that  in  defining  that  lady's  possessions  it  was  im 
possible  not  to  trespass  on  those  of  her  friends. 

Mr.  Newell  made  no  farther  comment,  but  presently 

requested  his  companion  to  rehearse  to  him  once  more 

the  exact  duties  which  were  to  devolve  on  him  during  the 

coming  ceremony.  Having  mastered  these  he  remained 

[891 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

silent,  fixing  a  dry  speculative  eye  on  the  panorama  of  the 
brilliant  streets,  till  the  carriage  drew  up  at  the  entrance 
of  Saint  Philippe  du  Roule. 

With  the  same  air  of  composure  he  followed  his  guide 
through  the  mob  of  spectators,  and  up  the  crimson  velvet 
steps,  at  the  head  of  which,  but  for  a  word  from  Garnett, 
a  formidable  Suisse,  glittering  with  cocked  hat  and  mace, 
would  have  checked  the  advance  of  the  small  crumpled 
figure  so  oddly  out  of  keeping  with  the  magnificence  of 
the  bridal  party.  The  French  fashion  prescribing  that 
the  family  cortege  shall  follow  the  bride  to  the  altar,  the 
vestibule  of  the  church  was  thronged  with  the  participators 
in  the  coming  procession;  but  if  Mr.  Newell  felt  any  ner 
vousness  at  his  sudden  projection  into  this  unfamiliar  group, 
nothing  in  his  look  or  manner  betrayed  it.  He  stood  beside 
Garnett  till  a  white-favoured  carriage,  dashing  up  to  the 
church  with  a  superlative  glitter  of  highly  groomed  horse 
flesh  and  silver-plated  harness,  deposited  the  snowy  appa 
rition  of  the  bride,  supported  by  her  mother;  then,  as  Her- 
mione  entered  the  vestibule,  he  went  forward  quietly  to 
meet  her. 

The  girl,  wrapped  in  the  haze  of  her  bridal  veil,  and  a 
little  confused,  perhaps,  by  the  anticipation  of  the  meeting, 
paused  a  moment,  as  if  in  doubt,  before  the  small  oddly- 
clad  figure  which  blocked  her  path — a  horrible  moment  to 
Garnett,  who  felt  a  pang  of  misery  at  this  satire  on  the 
infallibility  of  the  filial  instinct.  He  longed  to  make  some 
[90] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

sign,  to  break  in  some  way  the  pause  of  uncertainty;  but 
before  he  could  move  he  saw  Mrs.  Newell  give  her  daughter 
a  sharp  push,  he  saw  a  blush  of  compunction  flood  Her- 
mione's  face,  and  the  girl,  throwing  back  her  veil,  bent  her 
tall  head  and  flung  her  arms  about  her  father. 

Mr.  Newell  emerged  unshaken  from  the  embrace:  it 
seemed  to  have  no  effect  beyond  giving  an  odder  twist  to 
his  tie.  He  stood  beside  his  daughter  till  the  church  doors 
were  thrown  open;  then,  at  a  sign  from  the  verger,  he  gave 
her  his  arm,  and  the  strange  couple,  with  the  long  train  of 
fashion  and  finery  behind  them,  started  on  their  march  to 
the  altar. 

Garnett  had  already  slipped  into  the  church  and  secured 
a  post  of  vantage  which  gave  him  a  side-view  over  the 
assemblage.  The  building  was  thronged — Mrs.  Newell 
had  attained  her  ambition  and  given  Hermione  a  smart 
wedding.  Garnett's  eye  travelled  curiously  from  one  group 
to  another — from  the  numerous  representatives  of  the 
bridegroom's  family,  all  stamped  with  the  same  air  of 
somewhat  dowdy  distinction,  the  air  of  having  had  their 
thinking  done  for  them  for  so  long  that  they  could  no  longer 
perform  the  act  individually,  and  the  heterogeneous  com 
pany  of  Mrs.  Newell's  friends,  who  presented,  on  the  op 
posite  side  of  the  nave,  every  variety  of  individual  convic 
tion  in  dress  and  conduct.  Of  the  two  groups  the  latter  was 
decidedly  the  more  interesting  to  Garnett,  who  observed 
that  it  comprised  not  only  such  recent  acquisitions  as  the 
[91] 


THE   LAST  ASSET 

Woolsey  Hubbards  and  the  Baron,  but  also  sundry  more 

important  figures  which  of  late  had  faded  to  the  verge  of 

Mrs.  Newell's  horizon.  Hermione's  marriage  had  drawn 

them  back,  had  once  more  made  her  mother  a  social  en- 

i  tity,  had  in  short  already  accomplished  the  object  for  which 

1  it  had  been  planned  and  executed. 

And  as  he  looked  about  him  Garnett  saw  that  all  the 
other  actors  in  the  show  faded  into  insignificance  beside 
the  dominant  figure  of  Mrs.  Newell,  became  mere  mario 
nettes  pulled  hither  and  thither  by  the  hidden  wires  of  her 
intention.  One  and  all  they  were  there  to  serve  her  ends 
and  accomplish  her  purpose:  Schenkelderff  and  the  Hub- 
bards  to  pay  for  the  show,  the  bride  and  bridegroom  to 
seal  and  symbolize  her  social  rehabilitation,  Garnett  him 
self  as  the  humble  instrument  adjusting  the  different  parts 
of  the  complicated  machinery,  and  her  husband,  finally, 
as  the  last  stake  in  her  game,  the  last  asset  on  which  she 
could  draw  to  rebuild  her  fallen  fortunes.  At  the  thought 
Garnett  was  filled  with  a  deep  disgust  for  what  the  scene 
signified,  and  for  his  own  share  in  it.  He  had  been  her  tool 
and  dupe  like  the  others;  if  he  imagined  that  he  was  serv 
ing  Hermione,  it  was  for  her  mother's  ends  that  he  had 
worked.  What  right  had  he  to  sentimentalise  a  marriage 
founded  on  such  base  connivances,  and  how  could  he  have 
imagined  that  in  so  doing  he  was  acting  a  disinterested 
part? 

While  these  thoughts  were  passing  through  his  mind 
[92] 


THE   LAST   ASSET 

the  ceremony  had  already  begun,  and  the  principal 
personages  in  the  drama  were  ranged  before  him  in  the 
row  of  crimson  velvet  chairs  which  fills  the  foreground 
of  a  Catholic  marriage.  Through  the  glow  of  lights  and 
the  perfumed  haze  about  the  altar,  Garnett's  eyes  rested 
on  the  central  figures  of  the  group,  and  gradually  the  others 
disappeared  from  his  view  and  his  mind.  After  all,  neither 
Mrs.  Newell's  schemes  nor  his  own  share  in  them  could 
ever  unsanctify  Hermione's  marriage.  It  was  one  more 
testimony  to  life's  indefatigable  renewals,  to  nature's 
secret  of  drawing  fragrance  from  corruption;  and  as  his 
eyes  turned  from  the  girl's  illuminated  presence  to  the  re 
signed  and  stoical  figure  sunk  in  the  adjoining  chair,  it 
occurred  to  him  that  he  had  perhaps  worked  better  than 
he  knew  in  placing  them,  if  only  for  a  moment,  side  by 
side. 


!* 


'  r     •     S      /T*" ' 
r         ^       j\ 

.</>'.  \     ^    & 

"^^^/^v 

[93] 

. .   U  vA"  vPV 


IN  TRUST 


IN    TRUST 

IN  the  good  days,  just  after  we  all  left  college,  Ned 
Halidon  and  I  used  to  listen,  laughing  and  smoking, 
while  Paul  Ambrose  set  forth  his  plans. 

They  were  immense,  these  plans,  involving,  as  it  some 
times  seemed,  the  ultimate  esthetic  redemption  of  the 
whole  human  race,  and  provisionally  restoring  the  sense 
of  beauty  to  those  unhappy  millions  of  our  fellow-country 
men  who,  as  Ambrose  movingly  pointed  out,  now  live  and 
die  in  surroundings  of  unperceived  and  unmitigated  ugli 
ness. 

"I  want  to  bring  the  poor  starved  wretches  back  to  their 
lost  inheritance,  to  the  divine  past  they've  thrown  away — 
I  want  to  make  'em  hate  ugliness  so  that  they'll  smash 
nearly  everything  in  sight,"  he  would  exclaim,  stretching 
his  arms  across  the  shabby  black  walnut  writing-table  at 
which  he  sat,  and  shaking  his  thin  consumptive  fist  in  the 
face  of  all  the  accumulated  ugliness  in  the  world. 

"You  might  set  the  example  by  smashing  that  table," 
I  once  suggested  with  youthful  brutality;  and  Paul,  pull 
ing  himself  up,  cast  a  surprised  glance  at  me,  and  then 
looked  slowly  about  the  paternal  library. 

His  parents  were  dead,  and  he  had  inherited  the  house 
in  Seventeenth  Street,  where  his  grandfather  Ambrose  had 
[97] 


IN  TRUST 

lived  in  a  setting  of  black  walnut  and  pier  glasses,  giving 
Madeira  dinners,  and  saying  to  his  guests,  as  they  rejoined 
the  ladies  across  a  florid  waste  of  Aubusson:  "This,  sir, 
is  Dabney's  first  study  for  the  Niagara — the  Grecian 
Slave  in  the  bay  window  was  executed  for  me  in  Rome 
twenty  years  ago  by  my  old  friend  Ezra  Stimpson — "  by 
token  of  which  he  passed  for  a  Maecenas  in  the  New  York 
of  the  'forties,'  and  a  poem  had  once  been  published  in 
the  Keepsake  or  the  Book  of  Beauty  "On  a  picture  in  the 
possession  of  Jonathan  Ambrose,  Esqre." 

Since  then  the  house  had  remained  unchanged.  Paul's 
father,  a  frugal  liver  and  hard-headed  manipulator  of  in 
vestments,  did  not  inherit  old  Jonathan's  artistic  sensi 
bilities,  and  was  content  to  live  and  die  in  the  unmodified 
black  walnut  and  red  rep  of  his  predecessor.  It  was  only  in 
Paul  that  the  grandfather's  aesthetic  faculty  revived,  and 
Mrs.  Ambrose  used  often  to  say  to  her  husband,  as  they 
watched  the  little  pale-browed  boy  poring  over  an  old 
number  of  the  Art  Journal:  "Paul  will  know  how  to  ap 
preciate  your  father's  treasures." 

In  recognition  of  these  transmitted  gifts  Paul,  on  leav 
ing  Harvard,  was  sent  to  Paris  with  a  tutor,  and  established 
in  a  studio  in  which  nothing  was  ever  done.  He  could  not 
paint,  and  recognised  the  fact  early  enough  to  save  himself 
much  labour  and  his  friends  many  painful  efforts  at  dis 
simulation.  But  he  brought  back  a  touching  enthusiasm  for 
the  forms  of  beauty  which  an  old  civilization  had  revealed 
[98] 


IN   TRUST 

to  him,  and  an  apostolic  ardour  in  the  cause  of  their  dis 
semination. 

He  had  paused  in  his  harangue  to  take  in  my  ill-timed 
parenthesis,  and  the  colour  mounted  to  his  thin  cheek 
bones. 

"It  is  an  ugly  room,"  he  owned,  as  though  he  had 
noticed  the  library  for  the  first  time. 

The  desk  was  carved  at  the  angles  with  the  heads  of 
helmeted  knights  with  long  black  walnut  moustaches. 
The  red  cloth  top  was  worn  thread-bare,  and  patterned 
like  a  map  with  islands  and  peninsulas  of  ink;  and  in  its 
centre  throned  a  massive  bronze  inkstand  representing  a 
Syrian  maiden  slumbering  by  a  well  beneath  a  palm-tree. 

"The  fact  is,"  I  said,  walking  home  that  evening  with 
Ned  Halidon,  "old  Paul  will  never  do  anything,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  he's  too  stingy." 

Ned,  who  was  an  idealist,  shook  his  handsome  head. 
"It's  not  that,  my  dear  fellow.  He  simply  doesn't  see  things 
when  they're  too  close  to  him.  I'm  glad  you  woke  him  up 
to  that  desk." 

The  next  time  I  dined  with  Paul  he  said,  when  we 
entered  the  library,  and  I  had  gently  rejected  one  of  his 
cheap  cigars  in  favour  of  a  superior  article  of  my  own: 
"Look  here,  I've  been  hunting  round  for  a  decent  writing- 
table.  I  don't  care,  as  a  rule,  to  turn  out  old  things,  es 
pecially  when  they've  done  good  service,  but  I  see  now 
that  this  is  too  monstrous — " 

[99] 


IN  TRUST 

"For  an  apostle  of  beauty  to  write  his  evangel  on,'*  I 
agreed,  "it  is  a  little  inappropriate,  except  as  an  awful 
warning." 

Paul  coloured.  "Well,  but,  my  dear  fellow,  I'd  no  idea 
how  much  a  table  of  this  kind  costs.  I  find  I  can't  get  any 
thing  decent — the  plainest  mahogany — under  a  hundred 
and  fifty."  He  hung  his  head,  and  pretended  not  to  notice 
that  I  was  taking  out  my  own  cigar. 

"Well,  what's  a  hundred  and  fifty  to  you  ?"  I  rejoined. 
"You  talk  as  if  you  had  to  live  on  a  book-keeper's  salary, 
with  a  large  family  to  support." 

He  smiled  nervously  and  twirled  the  ring  on  his  thin 
finger.  "I  know — I  know — that's  all  very  well.  But  for 
twenty  tables  that  I  don't  buy  I  can  send  some  fellow  abroad 
and  unseal  his  eyes." 

"Oh,  hang  it,  do  both!"  I  exclaimed  impatiently;  but 
the  writing-table  was  never  bought.  The  library  remained 
as  it  was,  and  so  did  the  contention  between  Halidon  and 
myself,  as  to  whether  this  inconsistent  acceptance  of  his 
surroundings  was  due,  on  our  friend's  part,  to  a  congenital 
inability  to  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket,  or  to  a  real  uncon 
sciousness  of  the  ugliness  that  happened  to  fall  inside  his 
point  of  vision. 

"But  he  owned  that  the  table  was  ugly,"  I  argued. 

"Yes,  but  not  till  you'd  called  his  attention  to  the 
fact;  and  I'll  wager  he  became  unconscious  of  it  again  as 
soon  as  your  back  was  turned." 
[100] 


IN   TRUST 

"Not  before  he'd  had  time  to  look  at  a  lot  of  others, 
and  make  up  his  mind  that  he  couldn't  afford  to  buy  one." 

"That  was  just  his  excuse.  He'd  rather  be  thought  mean 
than  insensible  to  ugliness.  But  the  truth  is  he  doesn't  mind 
the  table  and  is  used  to  it.  He  knows  his  way  about  the 
drawers." 

"But  he  could  get  another  with  the  same  number  of 
drawers." 

"Too  much  trouble,"  argued  Halidon. 

"Too  much  money,"  I  persisted. 

"Oh,  hang  it,  now,  if  he  were  mean  would  he  have 
founded  three  travelling  scholarships  and  be  planning  the 
big  Academy  of  Arts  ?" 

"Well,  he's  mean  to  himself,  at  any  rate." 

"Yes;  and  magnificently,  royally  generous  to  all  the 
world  besides!"  Halidon  exclaimed  with  one  of  his  great 
flushes  of  enthusiasm. 

But  if,  on  the  whole,  the  last  word  remained  with  Hali 
don,  and  Ambrose's  personal  chariness  seemed  a  trifling 
foible  compared  to  his  altruistic  breadth  of  intention,  yet 
neither  of  us  could  help  observing,  as  time  went  on,  that 
the  habit  of  thrift  was  beginning  to  impede  the  execution 
of  his  schemes  of  art-philanthropy.  The  three  travelling 
scholarships  had  been  founded  in  the  first  blaze  of  his 
ardour,  and  before  the  personal  management  of  his  prop 
erty  had  awakened  in  him  the  sleeping  instincts  of  parsi 
mony.  But  as  his  capital  accumulated,  and  problems  of  in- 
[101] 


IN  TRUST 

vestment  and  considerations  of  interest  began  to  encroach 
on  his  visionary  hours,  we  saw  a  gradual  arrest  in  the  de 
velopment  of  his  plan. 

"For  every  thousand  dollars  he  talks  of  spending  on  his 
work,  I  believe  he  knocks  off  a  cigar,  or  buys  one  less  news 
paper,"  Halidon  grumbled  affectionately;  "but  after  all," 
he  went  on,  with  one  of  the  quick  revivals  of  optimism 
that  kept  his  spirit  perpetually  fresh,  "after  all,  it  makes 
one  admire  him  all  the  more  when  one  sees  such  a  nature 
condemned  to  be  at  war  with  the  petty  inherited  instinct 
of  greed." 

Still,  I  could  see  it  was  a  disappointment  to  Halidon 
that  the  great  project  of  the  Academy  of  Arts  should  con 
tinue  to  languish  on  paper  after  all  its  details  had  been 
discussed  and  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  projector, 
and  of  the  expert  advisers  he  had  called  in  council. 

"He's  quite  right  to  do  nothing  in  a  hurry — to  take 
advice  and  compare  ideas  and  points  of  view — to  col 
lect  and  classify  his  material  in  advance,"  Halidon  argued, 
in  answer  to  a  taunt  of  mine  about  Paul's  perpetually 
reiterated  plea  that  he  was  still  waiting  for  So-and-so's 
report;  "but  now  that  the  plan's  mature — and  such  a 
plan !  You'll  grant  it's  magnificent  ? — I  should  think  he'd 
burn  to  see  it  carried  out,  instead  of  pottering  over  it  till 
his  enthusiasm  cools  and  the  whole  business  turns  stale 
on  his  hands." 

That  summer  Ambrose  went  to  Europe,  and  spent  his 
[102] 


IN   TRUST 

holiday  in  a  frugal  walking-tour  through  Brittany.  When 
he  came  back  he  seemed  refreshed  by  his  respite  from 
business  cares  and  from  the  interminable  revision  of  his 
cherished  scheme;  while  contact  with  the  concrete  mani 
festations  of  beauty  had,  as  usual,  renewed  his  flagging 
ardour. 

"By  Jove,"  he  cried,  "whenever  I  indulged  my  unworthy 
eyes  in  a  long  gaze  at  one  of  those  big  things — picture  or 
church  or  statue — I  kept  saying  to  myself:  'You  lucky 
devil,  you,  to  be  able  to  provide  such  a  sight  as  that  for 
eyes  that  can  make  some  good  use  of  it!  Isn't  it  better  to 
give  fifty  fellows  a  chance  to  paint  or  carve  or  build,  than 
to  be  able  to  daub  canvas  or  punch  clay  in  a  corner  all  by 
yourself?'" 

"Well,"  I  said,  when  he  had  worked  off  his  first  ebulli 
tion,  "when  is  the  foundation  stone  to  be  laid?" 

His  excitement  dropped.  "The  foundation  stone — ?" 

"When  are  you  going  to  touch  the  electric  button  that 
sets  the  thing  going?" 

Paul,  his  hands  in  his  sagging  pockets,  began  to  pace  the 
library  hearth-rug — I  can  see  him  now  setting  his  shabby 
red  slippers  between  its  ramified  cabbages. 

"My  dear  fellow,  there  are  one  or  two  points  to  be  con 
sidered  still — one  or  two  new  suggestions  I  picked  up  over 
there—" 

I  sat  silent,  and  he  paused  before  me,  flushing  to  the 
roots  of  his  thin  hair.  "You  think  I've  had  time  enough — 
[103] 


IN  TRUST 

that  I  ought  to  have  put  the  thing  through  before  this? 
I  suppose  you're  right;  I  can  see  that  even  Ned  Halidon 
thinks  so;  and  he  has  always  understood  my  difficulties 
better  than  you  have." 

This  exasperated  me.  "Ned  would  have  put  it  through 
years  ago!"  I  broke  out. 

Paul  pulled  at  his  straggling  moustache.  "You  mean 
he  has  more  executive  capacity  ?  More — no,  it's  not  that; 
he's  not  afraid  to  spend  money,  and  I  am!"  he  suddenly 
exclaimed. 

He  had  never  before  alluded  to  this  weakness  to  either 
of  us,  and  I  sat  abashed,  suffering  from  his  evident  dis 
tress.  But  he  remained  planted  before  me,  his  little  legs 
wide  apart,  his  eyes  fixed  on  mine  in  an  agony  of  volun 
tary  self-exposure. 

"That's  my  trouble,  and  I  know  it.  Big  sums  frighten  me 
— I  can't  look  them  in  the  face.  By  George,  I  wish  Ned 
had  the  carrying  out  of  this  scheme — I  wish  he  could 
spend  my  money  for  me! "  His  face  was  lit  by  the  reflection 
of  a  passing  thought.  "Do  you  know,  I  shouldn't  wonder 
if  I  dropped  out  of  the  running  before  either  of  you  chaps, 
and  in  case  I  do  I've  half  a  mind  to  leave  everything  in 
trust  to  Halidon,  and  let  him  put  the  job  through  for 
me." 

"Much  better  have  your  own  fun  with  it,"  I  retorted; 
but  he  shook  his  head,  saying  with  a  sigh  as  he  turned 
away:  "It's  not  fun  to  me — that's  the  worst  of  it." 
[104] 


1 

IN   TRUST 

Halidon,  to  whom  I  could  not  help  repeating  our  talk, 
was  amused  and  touched  by  his  friend's  thought. 

"Heaven  knows  what  will  become  of  the  scheme,  if  Paul 
doesn't  live  to  carry  it  out.  There  are  a  lot  of  hungry  Am 
brose  cousins  who  will  make  one  gulp  of  his  money,  and 
never  give  a  dollar  to  the  work.  Jove,  it  would  be  a  fine 
thing  to  have  the  carrying  out  of  such  a  plan — but  he'll 
do  it  yet,  you'll  see  he'll  do  it  yet!"  cried  Ned,  his  old 
faith  in  his  friend  flaming  up  again  through  the  wet  blanket 
of  fact. 


n 


T)AUL  AMBROSE  did  not  die  and  leave  his  fortune  to 
-^  Halidon,  but  the  following  summer  he  did  something 
far  more  unexpected.  He  went  abroad  again,  and  came 
back  married.  Now  our  busy  fancy  had  never  seen  Paul 
married.  Even  Ned  recognised  the  vague  unlikelihood  of 
such  a  metamorphosis. 

"He'd  stick  at  the  parson's  fee — not  to  mention  the 
best  man's  scarf-pin.  And  I  should  hate,"  Ned  added 
sentimentally,  "to  see  'the  touch  of  a  woman's  hand' 
desecrate  the  sublime  ugliness  of  the  ancestral  home. 
Think  of  such  a  house  made  'cosy'!" 

But  when  the  news  came  he  would  own  neither  to  sur 
prise  nor  to  disappointment. 

"Good-bye,  poor  Academy!"  I  exclaimed,  tossing  over 
[105]  % 


IN   TRUST 

the  bridegroom's  eight-page  rhapsody  to  Halidon,  who 
had  received  its  duplicate  by  the  same  post. 

"Now,  why  the  deuce  do  you  say  that?"  he  growled. 
"I  never  saw  such  a  beast  as  you  are  for  imputing  mean 
motives." 

To  defend  myself  from  this  accusation  I  put  out  my 
hand  and  recovered  Paul's  letter. 

"Here:  listen  to  this.  'Studying  art  in  Paris  when  I  met 
her — "the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine,  but  lacking  the 
accomplishment,"  etc.  ...  A  little  ethereal  profile,  like 
one  of  Piero  della  Francesca's  angels  .  .  .  not  rich,  thank 
heaven,  but  not  afraid  of  money,  and  already  enamoured 
of  my  project  for  fertilizing  my  sterile  millions  .  .  ,'" 

"Well,  why  the  deuce — ?"  Ned  began  again,  as  though 
I  had  convicted  myself  out  of  my  friend's  mouth;  and  I 
could  only  grumble  obscurely:  "It's  all  too  pat." 

He  brushed  aside  my  misgivings.  "Thank  heaven,  she 
can't  paint,  anyhow.  And  now  that  I  think  of  it,  Paul's 
just  the  kind  of  chap  who  ought  to  have  a  dozen  children." 

"Ah,  then  indeed:  good-bye, poor  Academy!"  I  croaked. 

The  lady  was  lovely,  of  that  there  could  be  no  doubt; 
and  if  Paul  now  for  a  time  forgot  the  Academy,  his  doing 
so  was  but  a  vindication  of  his  sex.  Halidon  had  only  a 
glimpse  of  the  returning  couple  before  he  was  himself 
snatched  up  in  one  of  the  chariots  of  adventure  that 
seemed  perpetually  waiting  at  his  door.  This  time  he  was 
[106] 


IN  TRUST 

going  to  the  far  East  in  the  train  of  a  "special  mission," 
and  his  head  was  humming  with  new  hopes  and  ardours; 
but  he  had  time  for  a  last  word  with  me  about  Am 
brose. 

"You'll  see — you'll  see!"  he  summed  up  hopefully  as 
we  parted;  and  what  I  was  to  see  was,  of  course,  the  crown 
ing  pinnacle  of  the  Academy  lifting  itself  against  the  horizon 
of  the  immediate  future. 

It  was  in  the  nature  of  things  that  I  should,  meanwhile, 
see  less  than  formerly  of  the  projector  of  that  unrealised 
structure.  Paul  had  a  personal  dread  of  society,  but  he 
wished  to  show  his  wife  to  the  world,  and  I  was  not  often 
a  spectator  on  these  occasions.  Paul  indeed,  good  fellow, 
tried  to  maintain  the  pretense  of  an  unbroken  intercourse, 
and  to  this  end  I  was  asked  to  dine  now  and  then;  but  when 
I  went  I  found  guests  of  a  new  type,  who,  after  dinner, 
talked  of  sport  and  stocks,  while  their  host  blinked  at  them 
silently  through  the  smoke  of  his  cheap  cigars. 

The  first  innovation  that  struck  me  was  a  sudden  im 
provement  in  the  quality  of  the  cigars.  Was  this  Daisy's 
doing?  (Mrs.  Ambrose  was  Daisy.)  It  was  hard  to  tell — 
she  produced  her  results  so  noiselessly.  With  her  fair  bent 
head  and  vague  smile,  she  seemed  to  watch  life  flow  by 
without,  as  yet,  trusting  anything  of  her  own  to  its  current. 
But  she  was  watching,  at  any  rate,  and  anything  might  come 
of  that.  Such  modifications  as  she  produced  were  as  yet 
almost  imperceptible  to  any  but  the  trained  observer.  I 
[107] 


IN   TRUST 

saw  that  Paul  wished  her  to  be  well  dressed,  but  also  that 
he  suffered  her  to  drive  in  a  hired  brougham,  and  to  have 
her  door  opened  by  the  raw-boned  Celt  who  had  bumped 
down  the  dishes  on  his  bachelor  table.  The  drawing-room 
curtains  were  renewed,  but  this  change  served  only  to  ac 
centuate  the  enormities  of  the  carpet,  and  perhaps  dis 
couraged  Mrs.  Ambrose  from  farther  experiments.  At  any 
rate,  the  desecrating  touch  that  Halidon  had  affected  to 
dread  made  no  other  inroads  on  the  serried  ugliness  of 
the  Ambrose  interior. 

In  the  early  summer,  when  Ned  returned,  the  Ambroses 
had  flown  to  Europe  again — and  the  Academy  was  still  on 
paper. 

"Well,  what  do  you  make  of  her?"  the  traveller  asked, 
as  we  sat  over  our  first  dinner  together. 

"Too  many  things — and  they  don't  hang  together.  Per 
haps  she's  still  in  the  chrysalis  stage." 

"Has  Paul  chucked  the  scheme  altogether?" 

"No.  He  sent  for  me  and  we  had  a  talk  about  it  just 
before  he  sailed." 

"And  what  impression  did  you  get?" 

"That  he  had  waited  to  send  for  me  till  just  before  he 
sailed." 

"Oh,  there  you  go  again!"  I  offered  no  denial,  and  after 
a  pause  he  asked:  "Did  she  ever  talk  to  you  about  it?" 

"Yes.  Once  or  twice — in  snatches." 

"Well—?" 

[108] 


IN  TRUST 

"She  thinks  it  all  too  beautiful.  She  would  like  to  see 
beauty  put  within  the  reach  of  every  one.'* 

"And  the  practical  side — ?" 

"She  says  she  doesn't  understand  business." 

Halidon  rose  with  a  shrug.  "Very  likely  you  frightened 
her  with  your  ugly  sardonic  grin." 

"It's  not  my  fault  if  my  smile  doesn't  add  to  the  sum- 
total  of  beauty." 

"Well,"  he  said,  ignoring  me,  "next  winter  we  shall  see." 

But  the  next  winter  did  not  bring  Ambrose  back.  A 
brief  line,  written  in  November  from  the  Italian  lakes, 
told  me  that  he  had  "a  rotten  cough,"  and  that  the  doctors 
were  packing  him  off  to  Egypt.  Would  I  see  the  architects 
for  him,  and  explain  to  the  trustees?  (The  Academy  al 
ready  had  trustees,  and  all  the  rest  of  its  official  hierarchy.) 
And  would  they  all  excuse  his  not  wrriting  more  than  a 
word  ?  He  was  really  too  groggy — but  a  little  warm  weather 
would  set  him  up  again,  and  he  would  certainly  come  home 
in  the  spring. 

He  came  home  in  the  spring — in  the  hold  of  the  ship, 
with  his  widow  several  decks  above.  The  funeral  services 
were  attended  by  all  the  officers  of  the  Academy,  and  by 
two  of  the  young  fellows  who  had  wron  the  travelling 
scholarships,  and  who  shed  tears  of  genuine  grief  when  their 
benefactor  was  committed  to  the  grave. 

After  that  there  was  a  pause  of  suspense — and  then  the 
newspapers  announced  that  the  late  Paul  Ambrose  had  left 
[109] 


IN  TRUST 

his  entire  estate  to  his  widow.  The  board  of  the  Academy 
dissolved  like  a  summer  cloud,  and  the  secretary  lighted 
his  pipe  for  a  year  with  the  official  paper  of  the  still-born 
institution. 

After  a  decent  lapse  of  time  I  called  at  the  house  in 
Seventeenth  Street,  and  found  a  man  attaching  a  real- 
estate  agent's  sign  to  the  window  and  a  van-load  of  lug 
gage  backing  away  from  the  door.  The  care-taker  told  me 
that  Mrs.  Ambrose  was  sailing  the  next  morning.  Not 
long  afterward  I  saw  the  library  table  with  the  helmeted 
knights  standing  before  an  auctioneer's  door  in  University 
Place;  and  I  looked  with  a  pang  at  the  familiar  ink-stains, 
in  which  I  had  so  often  traced  the  geography  of  Paul's 
visionary  world. 

Halidon,  who  had  picked  up  another  job  in  the  Orient, 
wrote  me  an  elegiac  letter  on  Paul's  death,  ending  with 
— "And  what  about  the  Academy?"  and  for  all  answer  I 
sent  him  a  newspaper-clipping  recording  the  terms  of  the 
will,  and  another  announcing  the  sale  of  the  house  and 
Mrs.  Ambrose's  departure  for  Europe. 

Though  Ned  and  I  corresponded  with  tolerable  regu 
larity  I  received  no  direct  answer  to  this  communication 
till  about  eighteen  months  later,  when  he  surprised  me  by 
a  letter  dated  from  Florence.  It  began:  "Though  she  tells 
me  you  have  never  understood  her — "  and  when  I  had 
reached  that  point  I  laid  it  down  and  stared  out  of  my  office 
window  at  the  chimney-pots  and  the  dirty  snow  on  the  roof. 
[110] 


IN  TRUST 

"Ned  Halidon  and  Paul's  wife!"  I  murmured;  and,  in 
congruously  enough,  my  next  thought  was:  "I  wish  I'd 
bought  the  library  table." 

The  letter  went  on  with  waxing  eloquence:  "I  could 
not  stand  the  money  if  it  were  not  that,  to  her  as  well  as 
to  me,  it  represents  the  sacred  opportunity  of  at  last  giving 
speech  to  his  inarticulateness  ..." 

"Oh,  damn  it,  they're  too  glib!"  I  muttered,  dash 
ing  the  letter  down;  then,  controlling  my  unreasoning 
resentment,  I  read  on.  "You  remember,  old  man,  those 
words  of  his  that  you  repeated  to  me  three  or  four 
years  ago:  'I've  half  a  mind  to  leave  my  money  in 
trust  to  Ned '  ?  Well,  it  has  come  to  me  in  trust — as  if 
in  mysterious  fulfilment  of  his  thought;  and,  oh,  dear 
chap — "  I  dashed  the  letter  down,  and  plunged  into 
my  work. 


m 


'*  T  T  7"ON'T  you  own  yourself  a  beast,  dear  boy  ?"  Hali- 
*  ^      don  asked  me  gently,  one  afternoon  of  the  follow 
ing  spring. 

I  had  escaped  for  a  six  weeks'  holiday,  and  was  lying 
outstretched  beside  him  in  a  willow  chair  on  the  terrace 
of  their  villa  above  Florence. 

My  eyes  turned  from  the  happy  vale  at  our  feet  to  the 
illuminated  face  beside  me.  A  little  way  off,  at  the  other  end 
[111] 


IN  TRUST 

of  the  terrace,  Mrs.  Halidon  was  bending  over  a  pot  of 
carnations  on  the  balustrade. 

"Oh,  cheerfully,"  I  assented. 

"You  see,"  he  continued,  glowing,  "living  here  costs 
us  next  to  nothing,  and  it  was  quite  her  idea,  our  founding 
that  fourth  scholarship  in  memory  of  Paul." 

I  had  already  heard  of  the  fourth  scholarship,  but  I  may 
have  betrayed  my  surprise  at  the  plural  pronoun,  for  the 
blood  rose  under  Ned's  sensitive  skin,  and  he  said  with 
an  embarrassed  laugh:  "Ah,  she  so  completely  makes  me 
forget  that  it's  not  mine  too." 

"Well,  the  great  thing  is  that  you  both  think  of  it  chiefly 
as  his." 

"Oh,  chiefly — altogether.  I  should  be  no  more  than  a 
wretched  parasite  if  I  didn't  live  first  of  all  for  that!" 

Mrs.  Halidon  had  turned  and  was  advancing  .toward 
us  with  the  slow  step  of  leisurely  enjoyment.^JThe  bud  of 
her  beauty  had  at  last  unfolded:  her  vague  enigmatical  gaze 
had  given  way  to  the  clear  look  of  the  woman  whose  hand 
is  on  the  clue  of  life. 

"She's  not  living  for  anything  but  her  own  happiness," 
I  mused,  "and  why  in  heaven's  name  should  she?  But 
Ned—" 

"My  wife,"  Halidon  continued,  his  eyes  following  mine, 

"my  wife  feels  it  too,  even  more  strongly.  You  know  a 

woman's  sensitiveness.  She's — there's  nothing  she  wouldn't 

do  for  his  memory — because — in  other  ways.  .  .  .  You 

[112] 


IN  TRUST 

understand,"  he  added,  lowering  his  ^  tone  as  she  drew 
nearer,  "that  as  soon  as  the  child  is  born  we  mean  to  go 
home  for  good,  and  take  up  his  work — Paul's  work." 

Mrs.  Halidon  recovered  slowly  after  the  birth  of  her 
child:  the  return  to  America  was  deferred  for  six  months, 
and  then  again  for  a  whole  year.  I  heard  of  the  Halidons 
as  established  first  at  Biarritz,  then  in  Rome.  The  second 
summer  Ned  wrote  me  a  line  from  St.  Moritz.  He  said  the 
place  agreed  so  well  with  his  wife — who  was  still  delicate 
— that  they  were  "thinking  of  building  a  house  there: 
a  mere  cleft  in  the  rocks,  to  hide  our  happiness  in  when 
it  becomes  too  exuberant " — and  the  rest  of  the  letter,  very 
properly,  was  filled  with  a  rhapsody  upon  his  little  daughter. 
He  spoke  of  her  as  Paula. 

The  following  year  the  Halidons  reappeared  in  New 
York,  and  I  heard  with  surprise  that  they  had  taken  the 
Brereton  house  for  the  winter. 

"Well,  why  not?"  I  argued  with  myself.  "After  all,  the 
money  is  hers:  as  far  as  I  know  the  will  didn't  even  hint 
at  a  restriction.  Why  should  I  expect  a  pretty  woman  with 
two  children"  (for  now  there  was  an  heir)  "to  spend  her 
fortune  on  a  visionary  scheme  that  its  originator  hadn't 
the  heart  to  carry  out  ?  " 

"Yes,"  cried  the  devil's  advocate— "but  Ned?" 

My  first  impression  of  Halidon  was  that  he  had  thick 
ened — thickened  all  through.  He  was  heavier,  physically, 
[113] 


IN   TRUST 

with  the  ruddiness  of  good  living  rather  than  of  hard  train 
ing;  he  spoke  more  deliberately,  and  had  less  frequent  bursts 
of  subversive  enthusiasm.  Well,  he  was  a  father,  a  house 
holder — yes,  and  a  capitalist  now.  It  was  fitting  that  his 
manner  should  show  a  sense  of  these  responsibilities.  As  for 
Mrs.  Halidon,  it  was  evident  that  the  only  responsibilities  she 
was  conscious  of  were  those  of  the  handsome  woman  and 
the  accomplished  hostess.  She  was  handsomer  than  ever 
with  her  two  babies  at  her  knee — perfect  mother  as  she 
was  perfect  wife.  Poor  Paul!  I  wonder  if  he  ever  dreamed 
what  a  flower  was  hidden  in  the  bud  ? 

Not  long  after  their  arrival,  I  dined  alone  with  the  Hali- 
dons,  and  lingered  on  to  smoke  with  Ned  while  his  wife 
went  alone  to  the  opera.  He  seemed  dull  and  out  of  sorts, 
and  complained  of  a  twinge  of  gout. 

"Fact  is,  I  don't  get  enough  exercise — I  must  look  about 
for  a  horse." 

He  had  gone  afoot  for  a  good  many  years,  and  kept  his 
clear  skin  and  quick  eye  on  that  homely  regimen — but  I 
had  to  remind  myself  that,  after  all,  we  were  both  older; 
and  also  that  the  Halidons  had  champagne  every  evening. 

"How  do  you  like  these  cigars?  They're  some  I've  just 
got  put  from  London,  but  I'm  not  quite  satisfied  with  them 
myself,"  he  grumbled,  pushing  toward  me  the  silver  box 
and  its  attendant  taper. 

I  leaned  to  the  flame,  and  our  eyes  met  as  I  lit  my  cigar. 
Ned  flushed  and  laughed  uneasily.  "Poor  Paul!  Were  you 
[114] 


IN   TRUST 

thinking  of  those  execrable  weeds  of  his  ? — I  wonder  how 
I  knew  you  were  ?  Probably  because  I've  been  wanting 
to  talk  to  you  of  our  plan — I  sent  Daisy  off  alone  so  that 
we  might  have  a  quiet  evening.  Not  that  she  isn't  interested, 
only  the  technical  details  bore  her." 

I  hesitated.  "Are  there  many  technical  details  left  to 
settle?" 

Halidon  pushed  his  armchair  back  from  the  fire-light, 
and  twirled  his  cigar  between  his  fingers.  "  I  didn't  suppose 
there  were  till  I  began  to  look  into  things  a  little  more 
closely.  You  know  I  never  had  much  of  a  head  for  business, 
and  it  was  chiefly  with  you  that  Paul  used  to  go  over  the 
figures." 

"The  figures—  ?" 

"There  it  is,  you  see."  He  paused.  "Have  you  any 
idea  how  much  this  thing  is  going  to  cost  ?" 

"Approximately,  yes." 

"And  have  you  any  idea  how  much  we — how  much 
Daisy's  fortune  amounts  to?" 

"None  whatever,"  I  hastened  to  assert. 

He  looked  relieved.  "Well,  we  simply  can't  do  it — and 
live." 

"Live?" 

"Paul  didn't  live,"  he  said  impatiently.  "I  can't  ask  a 

woman  with  two  children  to  think  of — hang  it,  she's  under 

no  actual  obligation — "  He  rose  and  began  to  walk  the 

floor.  Presently  he  turned  and  halted  in  front  of  me,  de- 

[115] 


IN  TRUST 

fensively,  as  Paul  had  once  done  years  before.  "It's  not 
that  I've  lost  the  sense  of  my  obligation — it  grows  keener 
with  the  growth  of  my  happiness;  but  my  position's  a  deli 
cate  one — " 

"Ah,  my  dear  fellow—" 

"You  do  see  it  ?  I  knew  you  would."  (Yes,  he  was  duller!) 
"That's  the  point.  I  can't  strip  my  wife  and  children  to 
carry  out  a  plan — a  plan  so  nebulous  that  even  its  inven 
tor.  .  .  .  The  long  and  short  of  it  is  that  the  whole  scheme 
must  be  restudied,  reorganized.  Paul  lived  in  a  world  of 
dreams." 

I  rose  and  tossed  my  cigar  into  the  fire.  "There  were 
some  things  he  never  dreamed  of,"  I  said. 

Halidon  rose  too,  facing  me  uneasily.  "You  mean — ?" 

"That  you  would  taunt  him  with  not  having  spent  that 
money." 

He  pulled  himself  up  with  darkening  brows;  then  the 
muscles  of  his  forehead  relaxed,  a  flush  suffused  it,  and 
he  held  out  his  hand  in  boyish  penitence. 

"I  stand  a  good  deal  from  you,"  he  said. 

He  kept  to  his  idea  of  going  over  the  Academy  ques 
tion — threshing  it  out  once  for  all,  as  he  expressed  it; 
but  my  suggestion  that  we  should  provisionally  resus 
citate  the  extinct  board  did  not  meet  with  his  ap 
proval. 

"Not  till  the  whole  business  is  settled.  I  shouldn't  have 
[116] 


IN   TRUST 

the  face — Wait  till  I  can  go  to  them  and  say:  'We're  lay 
ing  the  foundation-stone  on  such  a  day.'" 

We  had  one  or  two  conferences,  and  Ned  speedily  lost 
himself  in  a  maze  of  figures.  His  nimble  fancy  was  una 
menable  to  mental  discipline,  and  he  excused  his  inatten 
tion  with  the  plea  that  he  had  no  head  for  business. 

"All  I  know  is  that  it's  a  colossal  undertaking,  and  that 
short  of  living  on  bread  and  water — "  and  then  we  turned 
anew  to  the  hard  problem  of  retrenchment. 

At  the  close  of  the  second  conference  we  fixed  a  date  for  a 
third,  when  Ned's  business  adviser  was  to  be  called  in; 
but  before  the  day  came  I  learned  casually  that  the  Hali- 
dons  had  gone  South.  Some  weeks  later  Ned  wrote 
me  from  Florida,  apologizing  for  his  remissness.  They 
had  rushed  off  suddenly — his  wife  had  a  cough,  he  ex 
plained. 

When  they  returned  in  the  spring  I  heard  that  they  had 
bought  the  Brereton  house,  for  what  seemed  to  my  inex 
perienced  ears  a  very  large  sum.  But  Ned,  whom  I  met  one 
day  at  the  club,  explained  to  me  convincingly  that  it  was 
really  the  most  economical  thing  they  could  do.  "You 
don't  understand  about  such  things,  dear  boy,  living  in 
your  Diogenes  tub;  but  wait  till  there's  a  Mrs.  Diogenes. 
I  can  assure  you  it's  a  lot  cheaper  than  building,  which  is 
what  Daisy  would  have  preferred;  and  of  course,"  he  added, 
his  colour  rising  as  our  eyes  met,  "of  course,  once  the 
Academy's  going,  I  shall  have  to  make  my  head-quarters 
[117] 


IN  TRUST 

here;  and  I  suppose  even  you  won't  grudge  me  a  roof  over 
my  head." 

The  Brereton  roof  was  a  vast  one,  with  a  marble  balus 
trade  about  it;  and  I  could  quite  understand,  without 
Ned's  halting  explanation,  that  "under  the  circum 
stances"  it  would  be  necessary  to  defer  what  he  called 
"our  work — "  "Of  course,  after  we've  rallied  from  this 
amputation,  we  shall  grow  fresh  supplies — I  mean  my 
wife's  investments  will,"  he  laughingly  corrected,  "and 
then  we'll  have  no  big  outlays  ahead  and  shall  know  ex 
actly  where  we  stand.  After  all,  my  dear  fellow,  charity 
begins  at  home!" 


IV 


^  I  ^HE  Halidons  floated  off  to  Europe  for  the  summer. 
•*•     In  due  course  their  return  was  announced  in  the 
social  chronicle,  and  walking  up  Fifth  Avenue  one  after 
noon  I  saw  the  back  of  the  Brereton  house  sheathed  in 
scaffolding,  and  perceived  that  they  were  adding  a  wing. 
I  did  not  look  up  Halidon,  nor  did  I  hear  from  him  till 
the  middle  of  the  winter.  Once  or  twice,  meanwhile,  I 
had  seen  him  in  the  back  of  his  wife's  opera  box;  but 
Mrs.  Halidon  had  grown  so  resplendent  that  she  reduced 
her  handsome  husband  to  a  supernumerary.  In  January  the 
papers  began  to  talk  of  the  Halidon  ball;  and  in  due  course 
I  received  a  card  for  it.  I  am  not  a  frequenter  of  balls, 
[118] 


IN  TRUST 

and  had  no  intention  of  going  to  this  one;  but  when  the 
day  came  some  obscure  impulse  moved  me  to  set  aside 
my  rule  and  toward  midnight  I  presented  myself  at  Ned's 
illuminated  portals. 

I  shall  never  forget  his  look  when  I  accosted  him  on 
the  threshold  of  the  big  new  ball-room.  With  celibate 
egoism  I  had  rather  fancied  he  would  be  gratified  by  my 
departure  from  custom;  but  one  glance  showed  me  my 
mistake.  He  smiled  warmly,  indeed,  and  threw  into  his 
hand-clasp  an  artificial  energy  of  welcome —  "You  of  all 
people — my  dear  fellow!  Have  you  seen  Daisy?" — but 
the  look  behind  the  smile  made  me  feel  cold  in  the  crowded 
room. 

Nor  was  Mrs.  Halidon's  greeting  calculated  to  restore 
my  circulation.  "Have  you  come  to  spy  on  us  ?"  her  frosty 
smile  seemed  to  say;  and  I  crept  home  early,  wondering  if 
she  had  not  found  me  out. 

It  was  the  following  week  that  Halidon  turned  up  one 
day  in  my  office.  He  looked  pale  and  thinner,  and  for  the 
first  time  I  noticed  a  dash  of  gray  in  his  hair.  I  was  startled 
at  the  change  in  him,  but  I  reflected  that  it  was  nearly  a  year 
since  we  had  looked  at  each  other  by  daylight,  and  that 
my  shaving-glass  had  doubtless  a  similar  tale  to  tell. 

He  fidgeted  about  the  office,  told  me  a  funny  story  about 
his  little  boy,  and  then  dropped  into  a  chair. 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  go  into  business." 

"Business?"  I  stared. 

[119] 


IN  TRUST 

"Well,  why  not  ?  I  suppose  men  have  gone  to  work,  even 
at  my  age,  and  not  made  a  complete  failure  of  it.  The  fact 
is  I  want  to  make  some  money."  He  paused,  and  added: 
"I've  heard  of  an  opportunity  to  pick  up  for  next  to  noth 
ing  a  site  for  the  Academy,  and  if  I  could  lay  my  hands 
on  a  little  cash — " 

"Do  you  want  to  speculate?"  I  interposed. 

"Heaven  forbid!  But  don't  you  see  that,  if  I  had  a  fixed 
job — so  much  a  quarter — I  could  borrow  the  money  and 
pay  it  off  gradually?" 

I  meditated  on  this  astounding  proposition.  "Do  you 
really  think  it's  wise  to  buy  a  site  before — " 

"Before  what?" 

"Well— seeing  ahead  a  little?" 

His  face  fell  for  a  moment,  but  he  rejoined  cheerfully: 
"It's  an  exceptional  chance,  and  after  all,  I  shall  see  ahead 
if  I  can  get  regular  work.  I  can  put  by  a  little  every  month, 
and  by  and  by,  when  our  living  expenses  diminish,  my 
wife  means  to  come  forward — her  idea  would  be  to  give 
the  building — " 

He  broke  off  and  drummed  on  the  table,  waiting  ner 
vously  for  me  to  speak.  He  did  not  say  on  what  grounds 
he  still  counted  on  a  diminution  of  his  household  expenses, 
and  I  had  not  the  cruelty  to  press  this  point;  but  I  mur 
mured  after  a  moment:  "I  think  you're  right — I  should 
try  to  buy  the  land." 

We  discussed  his  potentialities  for  work,  which  were 
[120] 


IN  TRUST 

obviously  still  an  unknown  quantity,  and  the  conference 
ended  in  my  sending  him  to  a  firm  of  real-estate  brokers 
who  were  looking  out  for  a  partner  with  a  little  money  to 
invest.  Halidon  had  a  few  thousands  of  his  own,  which  he 
decided  to  embark  in  the  venture;  and  thereafter,  for  the 
remaining  months  of  the  winter,  he  appeared  punctually 
at  a  desk  in  the  broker's  office,  and  sketched  plans  of  the 
Academy  on  the  back  of  their  business  paper.  The  site  for 
the  future  building  had  meanwhile  been  bought,  and  I 
rather  deplored  the  publicity  which  Ned  gave  to  the  fact; 
but,  after  all,  since  this  publicity  served  to  commit  him  more 
deeply,  to  pledge  him  conspicuously  to  the  completion  of 
his  task,  it  was  perhaps  a  wise  instinct  of  self-coercion 
that  had  prompted  him. 

It  was  a  dull  winter  in  realty,  and  toward  spring,  when 
the  market  began  to  revive,  one  of  the  Halidon  children 
showed  symptoms  of  a  delicate  throat,  and  the  fashion 
able  doctor  who  humoured  the  family  ailments  counselled 
— nay,  commanded — a  prompt  flight  to  the  Mediterranean. 

"He  says  a  New  York  spring  would  be  simply  criminal 
— and  as  for  those  ghastly  southern  places,  my  wife  won't 
hear  of  them;  so  we're  off.  But  I  shall  be  back  in  July,  and 
I  mean  to  stick  to  the  office  all  summer." 

He  was  true  to  his  word,  and  reappeared  just  as  all  his 
friends  were  deserting  town.  For  two  torrid  months  he  sat 
at  his  desk,  drawing  fresh  plans  of  the  Academy,  and  wait 
ing  for  the  wind-fall  of  a  "big  deal";  but  in  September 
[121] 


IN   TRUST 

he  broke  down  from  the  effect  of  the  unwonted  confine 
ment  and  his  indignant  wife  swept  him  off  to  the  mountains. 

"Why  Ned  should  work  when  we  have  the  money — I 
wish  he'd  sell  that  wretched  piece  of  land!"  And  sell 
it  he  did  one  day:  I  chanced  on  a  record  of  the  transaction 
in  the  realty  column  of  the  morning  paper.  He  afterward 
explained  the  sale  to  me  at  length.  Owing  to  some  spas 
modic  effort  at  municipal  improvement,  there  had  been  an 
unforseen  rise  in  the  adjoining  property,  and  it  would  have 
been  foolish — yes,  I  agreed  that  it  would  have  been  fool 
ish.  He  had  made  $10,000  on  the  sale,  and  that  would  go 
toward  paying  off  what  he  had  borrowed  for  the  original 
purchase.  Meanwhile  he  could  be  looking  about  for  another 
site. 

Later  in  the  winter  he  told  me  it  was  a  bad  time  to  look. 
His  position  in  the  real-estate  business  enabled  him  to 
follow  the  trend  of  the  market,  and  that  trend  was  ob 
stinately  upward.  But  of  course  there  would  be  a  reaction — 
and  he  was  keeping  his  eyes  open. 

As  the  resuscitated  Academy  scheme  once  more  fell  into 
abeyance,  I  saw  Halidon  less  and  less  frequently;  and  we 
had  not  met  for  several  months,  when  one  day  of  June 
my  morning  paper  startled  me  with  the  announcement 
that  the  President  had  appointed  Edward  Halidon  of 
New  York  to  be  Civil  Commissioner  of  our  newly  acquired 
Eastern  possession,  the  Manana  Islands.  "The  unhealthy 
climate  of  the  islands,  and  the  defective  sanitation  of  the 
[122] 


IN   TRUST 

towns,  make  it  necessary  that  vigorous  measures  should  be 
taken  to  protect  the  health  of  the  American  citizens  es 
tablished  there,  and  it  is  believed  that  Mr.  Halidon's  large 
experience  of  Eastern  life  and  well-known  energy  of  char 
acter — "  I  read  the  paragraph  twice;  then  I  dropped  the 
paper,  and  projected  myself  through  the  subway  to  Hali 
don's  office.  But  he  was  not  there;  he  had  not  been  there 
for  a  month.  One  of  the  clerks  believed  he  was  in  Wash 
ington. 

"It's  true,  then!"  I  said  to  myself.  "But  Mrs.  Halidon  in 
the  Mananas — ?" 

A  day  or  two  later  Ned  appeared  in  my  office.  He  looked 
better  than  when  we  had  last  met,  and  there  was  a  deter 
mined  line  about  his  lips. 

"My  wife?  Heaven  forbid!  You  don't  suppose  I  should 
think  of  taking  her  ?  But  the  job's  a  tremendously  inter 
esting  one,  and  it's  the  kind  of  work  I  believe  I  can  do — 
the  only  kind,"  he  added,  smiling  rather  ruefully. 

"But  my  dear  Ned— " 

He  faced  me  with  a  look  of  quiet  resolution.  "I  think 
I've  been  through  all  the  buts.  It's  an  infernal  climate,  of 
course,  but  then  I  am  used  to  the  East — I  know  what  pre 
cautions  to  take.  And  it  would  be  a  big  thing  to  clean  up 
that  Augean  stable." 

"  But  consider  your  wife  and  children —  "  -rr*-* 

He  met  this  with  deliberation.  "I  have  considered  my 
children — that's  the  point.  I  don't  want  them  to  be  able  to 
[123] 


IN  TRUST 

say,  when  they  look  back:  'He  was  content  to  go  on  living 
on  that  money — '" 

"  My  dear  Ned—  " 

" That's  the  one  thing  they  shan't  say  of  me,"  he  re 
peated  vehemently. "  I've  tried  other  ways — but  I'm  no  good 
at  business.  I  see  now  that  I  shall  never  make  money  enough 
to  carry  out  the  scheme  myself;  but  at  least  I  can  clear  out, 
and  not  go  on  being  his  pensioner — seeing  his  dreams 
turned  into  horses  and  carpets  and  clothes — " 

He  broke  off,  and  leaning  on  my  desk  hid  his  face  in 
his  hands.  When  he  looked  up  again  his  flush  of  wrath  had 
subsided. 

"Just  understand  me — it's  not  her  fault.  Don't  fancy 
I'm  trying  for  an  instant  to  shift  the  blame.  A  woman  with 
children  simply  obeys  the  instinct  of  her  sex;  she  puts  them 
first — and  I  wouldn't  have  it  otherwise.  As  far  as  she's 
concerned  there  were  no  conditions  attached — there's  no 
reason  why  she  should  make  any  sacrifice."  He  paused, 
and  added  painfully:  "The  trouble  is,  I  can't  make  her 
see  that  I'm  differently  situated." 

"But,  Ned,  the  climate — what  are  you  going  to  gain 
by  chucking  yourself  away?" 

He  lifted  his  brows.  "That's  a  queer  argument  from 
you.  And,  besides,  I'm  up  to  the  tricks  of  all  those  ague- 
holes.  And  I've  got  to  live,  you  see:  I've  got  something  to 
put  through."  He  saw  my  look  of  enquiry,  and  added  with 
a  shy  poignant  laugh — how  I  hear  it  still! — :  "I  don't 
•  [124] 


IN   TRUST 

mean  only  the  job  in  hand,  though  that's  enough  in  itself; 
but  Paul's  work — you  understand. — It  won't  come  in 
my  day,  of  course — I've  got  to  accept  that — but  my  boy's 
a  splendid  chap"  (the  boy  was  three),  "and  I  tell  you 
what  it  is,  old  man,  I  believe  when  he  grows  up  he'll  put 
it  through." 

"V 

i 
Halidon  went  to  the  Mananas,  anc*  for  two  years  the 

journals  brought  me  incidental  reports  of  the  work  he  was 
accomplishing.  He  certainly  had  found  a  job  to  his  hand: 
official  words  of  commendation  rang  through  the  country, 
and  there  were  lengthy  newspaper  leaders  on  the  efficiency 
with  which  our  representative  was  prosecuting  his  task  in 
that  lost  corner  of  our  colonies.  Then  one  day  a  brief  para 
graph  announced  his  death — "one  of  the  last  victims  of 
the  pestilence  he  had  so  successfully  combated." 

That  evening,  at  my  club,  I  heard  men  talking  of  him. 
One  said:  "What's  the  use  of  a  fellow  wasting  himself  on 
a  lot  of  savages?"  and  another  wiseacre  opined:  "Oh,  he 
went  off  because  there  was  friction  at  home.  A  fellow  like 
that,  who  knew  the  East,  would  have  got  through  all  right 
if  he'd  taken  the  proper  precautions.  I  saw  him  before  he 
left,  and  I  never  saw  a  man  look  less  as  if  he  wanted  to  live." 

I  turned  on  the  last  speaker,  and  my  voice  made  him 
drop  his  lighted  cigar  on  his  complacent  knuckles. 

"I  never  knew  a  man,"  I  exclaimed,  "who  had  better 
reasons  for  wanting  to  live!" 

[125] 


IN  TRUST 

A  handsome  youth  mused:  "Yes,  his  wife  is  very  beauti 
ful—but  it  doesn't  follow—" 

And  then  some  one  nudged  him,  for  they  knew  I  was 
Halidon's  friend. 

I 


[126] 


THE  PRETEXT 


THE    PRETEXT 


MRS.  RANSOM,  when  the  front  door  had  closed 
on  her  visitor,  passed  with  a  spring  from  the 
drawing-room  to  the  narrow  hall,  and  thence 
up  the  narrow  stairs  to  her  bedroom. 

Though  slender,  and  still  light  of  foot,  she  did  not  al 
ways  move  so  quickly:  hitherto,  in  her  life,  there  had  not 
been  much  to  hurry  for,  save  the  recurring  domestic  tasks 
that  compel  haste  without  fostering  elasticity;  but  some 
impetus  of  youth  revived,  communicated  to  her  by  her  talk 
with  Guy  Dawnish,  now  found  expression  in  her  girlish 
flight  upstairs,  her  girlish  impatience  to  bolt  herself  into 
her  room  with  her  throbs  and  her  blushes. 

Her  blushes  ?  Was  she  really  blushing  ? 

She  approached  the  cramped  eagle-topped  mirror  above 
her  plain  prim  dressing-table :  just  such  a  meagre  concession 
to  the  weakness  of  the  flesh  as  every  old-fashioned  house 
in  Wentworth  counted  among  its  relics.  The  face  re 
flected  in  this  unflattering  surface — for  even  the  mirrors 
of  Wentworth  erred  on  the  side  of  depreciation — did  not 
seem,  at  first  sight,  a  suitable  theatre  for  the  display  of 
the  tenderer  emotions,  and  its  owner  blushed  more  deeply 
as  the  fact  was  forced  upon  her. 
[129] 


THE   PRETEXT 

Her  fair  hair  had  grown  too  thin — it  no  longer  quite  hid 
the  blue  veins  in  the  candid  forehead  that  one  seemed 
to  see  turned  toward  professorial  desks,  in  large  bare  halls 
where  a  snowy  winter  light  fell  uncompromisingly  on  rows 
of  "thoughtful  women."  Her  mouth  was  thin,  too,  and  a 
little  strained;  her  lips  were  too  pale;  and  there  were  lines 
in  the  corners  of  her  eyes.  It  was  a  face  which  had  grown 
middle-aged  while  it  waited  for  the  joys  of  youth. 

Well — but  if  she  could  still  blush?  Instinctively  she 
drew  back  a  little,  so  that  her  scrutiny  became  less  micro 
scopic,  and  the  pretty  lingering  pink  threw  a  veil  over  her 
pallour,  the  hollows  in  her  temples,  the  faint  wrinkles  of  in 
experience  about  her  lips  and  eyes.  How  a  little  colour 
helped!  It  made  her  eyes  so  deep  and  shining.  She  saw 
now  why  bad  women  rouged.  .  .  .  her  redness  deepened 
at  the  thought. 

But  suddenly  she  noticed  for  the  first  time  that  the  col 
lar  of  her  dress  was  too  low.  It  showed  the  shrunken  lines 
of  the  throat.  She  rummaged  feverishly  in  a  tidy  scentless 
drawer,  and  snatching  out  a  bit  of  black  velvet,  bound 
it  about  her  neck.  Yes — that  was  better.  It  gave  her  the 
relief  she  needed.  Relief — contrast — that  was  it!  She  had 
never  had  any,  either  in  her  appearance  or  in  her  setting. 
She  was  as  flat  as  the  pattern  of  the  wall-paper — and  so  was 
her  life.  And  all  the  people  about  her  had  the  same  look. 
Wentworth  was  the  kind  of  place  where  husbands  and 
wives  gradually  grew  to  resemble  each  other — one  or  two 
[130] 


THE   PRETEXT 

of  her  friends,  she  remembered,  had  told  her  lately  that 
she  and  Ransom  were  beginning  to  look  alike.  .  .  . 

But  why  had  she  always,  so  tamely,  allowed  her  aspect 
to  conform  to  her  situation  ?  Perhaps  a  gayer  exterior  would 
have  provoked  a  brighter  fate.  Even  now — she  turned 
back  to  the  glass,  loosened  her  tight  strands  of  hair,  ran 
the  fine  end  of  the  comb  under  them  with  a  frizzing 
motion,  and  then  disposed  them,  more  lightly  and  amply, 
above  her  eager  face.  Yes — it  was  really  better;  it  made  a 
difference.  She  smiled  at  herself  with  a  timid  coquetry, 
and  her  lips  seemed  rosier  as  she  smiled.  Then  she  laid 
down  the  comb  and  the  smile  faded.  It  made  a  differ 
ence,  certainly — but  was  it  right  to  try  to  make  one's  hair  | 
look  thicker  and  wavier  than  it  really  was  ?  Between  that 
and  rouging  the  ethical  line  seemed  almost  imperceptible, 
and  the  spectre  of  her  rigid  New  England  ancestry  rose 
reprovingly  before  her.  She  was  sure  that  none  of  her  grand 
mothers  had  ever  simulated  a  curl  or  encouraged  a  blush. 
A  blush,  indeed !  What  had  any  of  them  ever  had  to  blush 
for  in  all  their  frozen  lives  ?  And  what,  in  Heaven's  name, 
had  she  ?  She  sat  down  in  the  stiff  mahogany  rocking-chair 
beside  her  work-table  and  tried  to  collect  herself.  From 
childhood  she  had  been  taught  to  "collect  herself" — but 
never  before  had  her  small  sensations  and  aspirations  been 
so  widely  scattered,  diffused  over  so  vague  and  uncharted 
an  expanse.  Hitherto  they  had  lain  in  neatly  sorted  and 
easily  accessible  bundles  on  the  high  shelves  of  a  perfectly 
[131] 


THE   PRETEXT 

ordered  moral  consciousness.  And  now — now  that  for  the 
first  time  they  needed  collecting — now  that  the  little  winged 
and  scattered  bits  of  self  were  dancing  madly  down  the 
vagrant  winds  of  fancy,  she  knew  no  spell  to  call  them  to 
the  fold  again.  The  best  way,  no  doubt — if  only  her  be 
wilderment  permitted — was  to  go  back  to  the  beginning — 
the  beginning,  at  least,  of  to-day's  visit — to  recapitulate, 
word  for  word  and  look  for  look.  .  .  . 

She  clasped  her  hands  on  the  arms  of  the  chair,  checked 
its  swaying  with  a  thrust  of  her  foot,  and  fixed  her  eyes 
on  the  inward  vision.  .  .  . 

To  begin  with,  what  had  made  to-day*s  visit  so  different 
from  the  others  ?  It  became  suddenly  vivid  to  her  that  there 
had  been  many,  almost  daily,  others,  since  Guy  Dawn- 
ish's  coming  to  Wentworth.  Even  the  previous  winter — 
the  winter  of  his  arrival  from  England — his  visits  had  been 
numerous  enough  to  make  Wentworth  aware  that — very 
naturally — Mrs.  Ransom  was  "looking  after"  the  stray 
young  Englishman  committed  to  her  husband's  care  by 
an  eminent  Q.  C.  whom  the  Ransoms  had  known  on 
one  of  their  London  visits,  and  with  whom  Ransom  had 
since  maintained  professional  relations.  All  this  was  in 
the  natural  order  of  things,  as  sanctioned  by  the  social 
code  of  Wentworth.  Every  one  was  kind  to  Guy  Dawnish 
— some  rather  importunately  so,  as  Margaret  Ransom 
had  smiled  to  observe — but  it  was  recognised  as  fitting 
that  she  should  be  kindest,  since  he  was  in  a  sense  her 
[132] 


THE   PRETEXT 

property,  since  his  people  in  England,  by  profusely  ac 
knowledging  her  kindness,  had  given  it  the  domestic 
sanction  without  which,  to  Wentworth,  any  social  relation 
between  the  sexes  remained  unhallowed  and  to  be  viewed 
askance.  Yes !  And  even  this  second  winter,  when  the  visits 
had  become  so  much  more  frequent,  so  admitted  a  part  of 
the  day's  routine,  there  had  not  been,  from  any  one,  a 
hint  of  surprise  or  of  conjecture. 

Mrs.  Ransom  smiled  writh  a  faint  bitterness.  She  was 
protected  by  her  age,  no  doubt — her  age  and  her  past,  and 
the  image  her  mirror  gave  back  to  her.  .  .  . 

Her  door-handle  turned  suddenly,  and  the  bolt's  re 
sistance  was  met  by  an  impatient  knock. 

"Margaret!" 

She  started  up,  her  brightness  fading,  and  unbolted 
the  door  to  admit  her  husband. 

"Why  are  you  locked  in?  Why,  you're  not  dressed 
yet!"  he  exclaimed. 

It  was  possible  for  Ransom  to  reach  his  dressing-room 
by  a  slight  circuit  through  the  passage;  but  it  was  character 
istic  of  the  relentless  domesticity  of  their  relation  that  he 
chose,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  directer  way  through  his 
wife's  bedroom.  She  had  never  before  been  disturbed  by 
this  practice,  which  she  accepted  as  inevitable,  but  had 
merely  adapted  her  own  habits  to  it,  delaying  her  hasty 
toilet  till  he  was  safe  in  his  room,  or  completing  it  before 
she  heard  his  step  on  the  stair;  since  a  scrupulous  tra- 
[133] 


THE   PRETEXT 

ditional  prudery  had  miraculously  survived  this  massacre 
of  all  the  privacies. 

"Oh,  I  shan't  dress  this  evening — I  shall  just  have 
some  tea  in  the  library  after  you've  gone,"  she  answered 
absently.  "Your  things  are  laid  out,"  she  added,  rous 
ing  herself. 

He  looked  surprised.  "The  dinner's  at  seven.  I  suppose 
the  speeches  will  begin  at  nine.  I  thought  you  were  com 
ing  to  hear  them." 

She  wavered.  "I  don't  know.  I  think  not.  Mrs.  Sperry's 
ill,  and  I've  no  one  else  to  go  with." 

He  glanced  at  his  watch.  "Why  not  get  hold  of  Dawn- 
ish?  Wasn't  he  here  just  now?  Why  didn't  you  ask 
him?" 

She  turned  toward  her  dressing-table  and  straightened 
the  comb  and  brush  with  a  nervous  hand.  Her  husband 
had  given  her,  that  morning,  two  tickets  for  the  ladies' 
gallery  in  Hamblin  Hall,  where  the  great  public  dinner  of 
the  evening  was  to  take  place — a  banquet  offered  by  the 
faculty  of  Wentworth  to  visitors  of  academic  eminence — 
and  she  had  meant  to  ask  Dawnish  to  go  with  her:  it  had 
seemed  the  most  natural  thing  to  do,  till  the  end  of  his 
visit  came,  and  then,  after  all,  she  had  not  spoken.  . . . 

"It's  too  late  now,"  she  murmured,  bending  over  her 
pincushion. 

"Too  late?  Not  if  you  telephone  him." 

Her  husband  came  toward  her,  and  she  turned  quickly 
[134] 


THE   PRETEXT 

to  face  him,  lest  he  should  suspect  her  of  trying  to  avoid 
his  eye.  To  what  duplicity  was  she  already  committed! 

Ransom  laid  a  friendly  hand  on  her  arm:  "Come  along, 
Margaret.  You  know  I  speak  for  the  bar."  She  was  aware, 
in  his  voice,  of  a  little  note  of  surprise  at  his  having  to  re 
mind  her  of  this. 

"Oh,  yes.  I  meant  to  go,  of  course — " 

"Well,  then — "  He  opened  his  dressing-room  door,  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  retreating  house-maid's  skirt. 
"Here's  Maria  now.  Maria!  Call  up  Mr.  Dawnish — at 
Mrs.  Creswell's,  you  know.  Tell  him  Mrs.  Ransom  wants 
him  to  go  with  her  to  hear  the  speeches  this  evening — the 
speeches,  you  understand? — and  he's  to  call  for  her  at  a 
quarter  before  nine.'* 

Margaret  heard  the  Irish  "Yessir"  on  the  stairs,  and 
stood  motionless  while  her  husband  added  loudly:  "And 
bring  me  some  towels  when  you  come  up."  Then  he  turned 
back  into  his  wife's  room. 

"Why,  it  would  be  a  thousand  pities  for  Guy  to  miss  this. 
He's  so  interested  in  the  way  we  do  things  over  here — 
and  I  don't  know  that  he's  ever  heard  me  speak  in  pub 
lic."  Again  the  slight  note  of  fatuity!  Was  it  possible  that 
Ransom  was  fatuous  ? 

He  paused  in  front  of  her,  his  short-sighted  unobservant 
glance  turned  unexpectedly  on  her  face. 

"You're  not  going  like  that,  are  you?"  he  asked,  with 
glaring  eye-glasses. 

[135] 


THE   PRETEXT 

"Like  what?"  she  faltered,  lifting  a  conscious  hand  to 
the  velvet  at  her  throat. 

"With  your  hair  in  such  a  fearful  mess.  Have  you  been 
shampooing  it?  You  look  like  the  Brant  girl  at  the  end 
of  a  tennis-match.'* 

The  Brant  girl  was  their  horror — the  horror  of  all 
right-thinking  Wentworth;  a  laced,  whale-boned,  frizzle- 
headed,  high-heeled  daughter  of  iniquity,  who  came — 
from  New  York,  of  course — on  long  disturbing  tumultu 
ous  visits  to  a  Wentworth  aunt,  working  havoc  among  the 
freshmen,  and  leaving,  when  she  departed,  an  angry  wake 
of  criticism  that  ruffled  the  social  waters  for  weeks.  She, 
too,  had  tried  her  hand  at  Guy — with  ludicrous  unsuccess. 
And  now,  to  be  compared  to  her — to  be  accused  of  look 
ing  "New  Yorky!"  Ah,  there  are  times  when  husbands 
are  obtuse;  and  Ransom,  as  he  stood  there,  thick  and  yet 
juiceless,  in  his  dry  legal  middle  age,  with  his  wiry  dust- 
coloured  beard  and  his  perpetual  pince-nez,  seemed  to 
his  wife  a  sudden  embodiment  of  this  traditional  attribute. 
Not  that  she  had  ever  fancied  herself,  poor  soul,  a"/emme 
incomprise"  She  had,  on  the  contrary,  prided  herself  on 
being  understood  by  her  husband  almost  as  much  as  on 
her  own  complete  comprehension  of  him.  Wentworth  laid 
a  good  deal  of  stress  on  "motives";  and  Margaret  Ran 
som  and  her  husband  had  dwelt  in  complete  community 
of  motive.  It  had  been  the  proudest  day  of  her  life  when, 
without  consulting  her,  he  had  refused  an  offer  of  partner- 
[136] 


THE   PRETEXT 

ship  in  an  eminent  New  York  firm  because  he  preferred 
the  distinction  of  practising  in  Wentworth,  of  being  known 
as  the  legal  representative  of  the  University.  Wentworth, 
in  fact,  had  always  been  the  bond  between  the  two;  they 
were  united  in  their  veneration  for  that  estimable  seat  of 
learning,  and  in  their  modest  yet  vivid  consciousness  of 
possessing  its  tone.  The  Wentworth  "tone"  is  unmis 
takable:  it  permeates  every  part  of  the  social  economy, 
from  the  coiffure  of  the  ladies  to  the  preparation  of  the 
food.  It  has  its  sumptuary  laws  as  well  as  its  curriculum 
of  learning.  It  sits  in  judgment  not  only  on  its  own  towns 
men  but  on  the  rest  of  the  world — enlightening,  criticising, 
ostracising  a  heedless  universe — and  non-conformity  to 
Wentworth  standards  involves  obliteration  from  Went- 
worth's  consciousness. 

In  a  world  without  traditions,  without  reverence,  with 
out  stability,  such  little  expiring  centres  of  prejudice  and 
precedent  make  an  irresistible  appeal  to  those  instincts 
for  which  a  democracy  has  neglected  to  provide.  Went 
worth,  with  its  "tone,"  its  backward  references,  its  in 
flexible  aversions  and  condemnations,  its  hard  moral  out 
line  preserved  intact  against  a  whirling  background  of 
experiment,  had  been  all  the  poetry  and  history  of  Margaret 
Ransom's  life.  Yes,  what  she  had  really  esteemed  in  her 
husband  was  the  fact  of  his  being  so  intense  an  embodi 
ment  of  Wentworth;  so  long  and  closely  identified,  for 
instance,  with  its  legal  affairs,  that  he  was  almost  a  part  of 
[1371 


THE   PRETEXT 

its  university  existence,  that  of  course,  at  a  college  banquet, 
he  would  inevitably  speak  for  the  bar ! 

It  was  wonderful  of  how  much  consequence  all  this  had 
seemed  till  now. . 


n 


T  T  7"HEN,  punctually  at  ten  minutes  to  seven,  her  hus- 
*  *  band  had  emerged  from  the  house,  Margaret 
Ransom  remained  seated  in  her  bedroom,  addressing 
herself  anew  to  the  difficult  process  of  self -collection.  As 
an  aid  to  this  endeavour,  she  bent  forward  and  looked 
out  of  the  window,  following  Ransom's  figure  as  it  re 
ceded  down  the  elm-shaded  street.  He  moved  almost  alone 
between  the  prim  flowerless  grass-plots,  the  white  porches, 
the  protrusion  of  irrelevant  shingled  gables,  which  stamped 
the  empty  street  as  part  of  an  American  college  town. 
She  had  always  been  proud  of  living  in  Hill  Street, 
where  the  university  people  congregated,  proud  to  as 
sociate  her  husband's  retreating  back,  as  he  walked  daily 
to  his  office,  with  backs  literary  and  pedagogic,  backs  of 
which  it  was  whispered,  for  the  edification  of  duly-im 
pressed  visitors:  "Wait  till  that  old  boy  turns — that's 
so-and-so." 

This  had  been  her  world,  a  world  destitute  of  personal 
experience,  but  filled  with  a  rich  sense  of  privilege  and 
distinction,  of  being  not  as  those  millions  were  who,  de- 
[1381 


THE   PRETEXT 

nied  the  inestimable  advantage  of  living  at  Wentworth, 
pursued  elsewhere  careers  foredoomed  to  futility. 

And  now — ! 

She  rose  and  turned  to  her  work-table,  where  she  had 
dropped,  on  entering,  the  handful  of  photographs  that 
Guy  Dawnish  had  left  with  her.  While  he  sat  so  close, 
pointing  out  and  explaining,  she  had  hardly  taken  in  the 
details;  but  now,  on  the  full  tones  of  his  low  young  voice, 
they  came  back  with  redoubled  distinctness.  This  was 
Guise  Abbey,  his  uncle's  place  in  Wiltshire,  where,  under 
his  grandfather's  rule,  Guy's  own  boyhood  had  been 
spent:  a  long  gabled  Jacobean  fa9ade,  many-chimneyed, 
ivy-draped,  overhung  (she  felt  sure)  by  the  boughs  of  a 
venerable  rookery.  And  in  this  other  picture — the  wTalled 
garden  at  Guise — that  was  his  uncle,  Lord  Askern,  a  hale 
gouty-looking  figure,  planted  robustly  on  the  terrace,  a 
gun  on  his  shoulder  and  a  couple  of  setters  at  his  feet. 
And  here  was  the  river  below  the  park,  with  Guy  "punt 
ing"  a  girl  in  a  flapping  hat — how  Margaret  hated  the 
flap  that  hid  the  girl's  face !  And  here  was  the  tennis-court, 
with  Guy  among  a  jolly  cross-legged  group  of  youths  in 
flannels,  and  pretty  girls  about  the  tea-table  under  the  big 
lime:  in  the  centre  the  curate  handing  bread  and  butter, 
and  in  the  middle  distance  a  footman  approaching  with 
more  cups. 

Margaret  raised  this  picture  closer  to  her  eyes,  puzzling, 
in  the  diminished  light,  over  the  face  of  the  girl  nearest 
[139] 


THE   PRETEXT 

to  Guy  Dawnish  —  bent  above  him  in  profile,  while  he 
laughingly  lifted  his  head.  No  hat  hid  this  profile,  which 
stood  out  clearly  against  the  foliage  behind  it. 

"And  who  is  that  handsome  girl?"  Margaret  had  said, 
detaining  the  photograph  as  he  pushed  it  aside,  and  struck 
by  the  fact  that,  of  the  whole  group,  he  had  left  only  this 
member  unnamed. 

"Oh,  only  Gwendolen  Matcher  —  I've  always  known 
her  —  .  Look  at  this:  the  almshouses  at  Guise.  Aren't 
they  jolly?" 

And  then  —  without  her  having  had  the  courage  to  ask 
if  the  girl  in  the  punt  were  also  Gwendolen  Matcher  — 
they  passed  on  to  photographs  of  his  rooms  at  Oxford,  of 
a  cousin's  studio  in  London  —  one  of  Lord  Askern's  grand 
sons  was  "artistic"  —  of  the  rose-hung  cottage  in  Wales 
to  which,  on  the  old  Earl's  death,  his  daughter-in-law, 
Guy's  mother,  had  retired. 

Every  one  of  the  photographs  opened  a  window  on  the 
life  Margaret  had  been  trying  to  picture  since  she  had 
known  him  —  a  life  so  rich,  so  romantic,  so  packed  —  in  the 
mere  casual  vocabulary  of  daily  life  —  with  historic  refer 
ence  and  poetic  allusion,  that  she  felt  almost  oppressed 
by  this  distant  whiff  of  its  air.  The  very  words  he  used 
fascinated  and  bewildered  her.  He  seemed  to  have  been 
born  into  all  sorts  of  connections,  political,  historical, 
official,  that  made  the  Ransom  situation  at  Wentworth 
-as  featureless  at  the  top-shelf  of  a  dark  closet.  Some  one 
[140] 


THE   PRETEXT 

in  the  family  had  "asked  for  the  Chiltern  Hundreds" — one 
uncle  was  an  Elder  Brother  of  the  Trinity  House — some 
one  else  was  the  Master  of  a  College — some  one  was  in 
command  at  Devonport — the  Army,  the  Navy,  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  House  of  Lords,  the  most  venerable 
seats  of  learning,  were  all  woven  into  the  dense  background 
of  this  young  man's  light  unconscious  talk.  For  the  un 
consciousness  was  unmistakable.  Margaret  was  not  with 
out  experience  of  the  transatlantic  visitor  who  sounds 
loud  names  and  evokes  reverberating  connections.  The 
poetry  of  Guy  Dawnish's  situation  lay  in  the  fact  that  it 
was  so  completely  a  part  of  early  associations  and  accepted 
facts.  Life  was  like  that  in  England — in  Wentworth,  of 
course  (where  he  had  been  sent,  through  his  uncle's  in 
fluence,  for  two  years'  training  in  the  neighbouring  elec 
trical  works  at  Smedden) — in  Wentworth,  though  "im 
mensely  jolly,"  it  was  different.  The  fact  that  he  was 
qualifying  to  be  an  electrical  engineer — with  the  hope  of  a 
secretaryship  at  the  London  end  of  the  great  Smedden 
Company — that,  at  best,  he  was  returning  home  to  a  life 
of  industrial  "grind,"  this  fact,  though  avowedly  a  bore, 
did  not  disconnect  him  from  that  brilliant  pinnacled  past, 
that  many-faceted  existence  in  which  the  brightest  episodes 
of  the  whole  body  of  English  fiction  seemed  collectively  re 
flected.  Of  course  he  would  have  to  work — younger  sons' 
sons  almost  always  had  to — but  his  uncle  Askern  (like 
Wentworth)  was  "immensely  jolly,"  and  Guise  always 
[141] 


THE   PRETEXT 

open  to  him,  and  his  other  uncle,  the  Master,  a  capital 
old  boy  too — and  in  town  he  could  always  put  up  with  his 
clever  aunt,  Lady  Caroline  Duckett,  who  had  made  a 
"beastly  marriage"  and  was  horribly  poor,  but  who  knew 
everybody  jolly  and  amusing,  and  had  always  been  par 
ticularly  kind  to  him. 

It  was  not — and  Margaret  had  not,  even  in  her  own 
thoughts,  to  defend  herself  from  the  imputation — it  was 
not  what  Wentworth  would  have  called  the  "material  side" 
of  her  friend's  situation  that  captivated  her.  She  was 
austerely  proof  against  such  appeals:  her  enthusiasms 
were  all  of  the  imaginative  order.  What  subjugated  her 
was  the  unexampled  prodigality  with  which  he  poured 
for  her  the  same  draught  of  tradition  of  which  Went 
worth  held  out  its  little  teacupful.  He  besieged  her 
with  a  million  Wentworths  in  one — saying,  as  it  were: 
"All  these  are  mine  for  the  asking — and  I  choose  you 
instead!" 

For  this,  she  told  herself  somewhat  dizzily,  was  what  it 
came  to — the  summing-up  toward  which  her  conscientious 
efforts  at  self -collect  ion  had  been  gradually  pushing  her: 
with  all  this  in  reach,  Guy  Dawnish  was  leaving  Went 
worth  reluctantly. 

"I  was  a  bit  lonely  here  at  first — but  noiv!"  And 
again:  "It  will  be  jolly,  of  course,  to  see  them  all 
again — but  there  are  some  things  one  doesn't  easily  give 
up...." 

[142] 


THE   PRETEXT 

If  he  had  known  only  Wentworth,  it  would  have  been 
wonderful  enough  that  he  should  have  chosen  her  out  of  all 
Wentworth — but  to  have  known  that  other  life,  and  to  set 
her  in  the  balance  against  it — poor  Margaret  Ransom,  in 
whom,  at  the  moment,  nothing  seemed  of  weight  but  her 
years!  Ah,  it  might  well  produce,  in  nerves,  and  brain,  and 
poor  unpractised  pulses,  a  flushed  tumult  of  sensation, 
the  rush  of  a  great  wave  of  life,  under  which  memory 
struggled  in  vain  to  reassert  itself,  to  particularise  again 
just  what  his  last  words — the  very  last — had  been.  . .  . 

When  consciousness  emerged,  quivering,  from  this  ret 
rospective  assault,  it  pushed  Margaret  Ransom — feeling 
herself  a  mere  leaf  in  the  blast — toward  the  writing-table 
from  which  her  innocent  and  voluminous  correspondence 
habitually  flowed.  She  had  a  letter  to  write  now — much 
shorter  but  more  difficult  than  any  she  had  ever  been 
called  on  to  indite. 

"Dear  Mr.  Dawnish,"  she  began,  "since  telephoning 
you  just  now  I  have  decided  not — " 

Maria's  voice,  at  the  door,  announced  that  tea  was  in 
the  library:  "And  I  s'pose  it's  the  brown  silk  you'll  wear 
to  the  speaking?" 

In  the  usual  order  of  the  Ransom  existence,  its  mistress's 

toilet  was  performed  unassisted;  and  the  mere  enquiry — 

at  once  friendly  and  deferential — projected,  for  Margaret, 

a  strong  light  on  the  importance  of  the  occasion.  That  she 

[143] 


THE   PRETEXT 

should  answer  "But  I  am  not  going,"  when  the  going 
was  so  manifestly  part  of  a  household  solemnity  about 
which  the  thoughts  below  stairs  fluttered  in  proud  partici 
pation;  that  in  face  of  such  participation  she  should  utter 
a  word  implying  indifference  or  hesitation — nay,  reveal 
ing  herself  the  transposed  uprooted  thing  she  had  been 
on  the  verge  of  becoming;  to  do  this  was — well!  infinitely 
harder  than  to  perform  the  alternative  act  of  tearing  up 
the  sheet  of  note-paper  under  her  reluctant  pen. 
Yes,  she  said,  she  would  wear  the  brown  silk. . . . 


m 


A  LL  the  heat  and  glare  from  the  long  illuminated 
•^  ^  table,  about  which  the  fumes  of  many  courses  still 
hung  in  a  savoury  fog,  seemed  to  surge  up  to  the  ladies' 
gallery,  and  concentrate  themselves  in  the  burning  cheeks 
of  a  slender  figure  withdrawn  behind  the  projection  of  a 
pillar. 

It  never  occurred  to  Margaret  Ransom  that  she  was 
sitting  in  the  shade.  She  supposed  that  the  full  light  of  the 
chandeliers  was  beating  on  her  face — and  there  were  mo 
ments  when  it  seemed  as  though  all  the  heads  about  the 
great  horse-shoe  below,  bald,  shaggy,  sleek,  close-thatched, 
or  thinly  latticed,  were  equipped  with  an  additional  pair 
of  eyes,  set  at  an  angle  which,  enabled  them  to  rake  her 
face  as  relentlessly  as  the  electric  burners. 
[144] 


THE   PRETEXT 

In  the  lull  after  a  speech,  the  gallery  was  fluttering  with 
the  rustle  of  programmes  consulted,  and  Mrs.  Sheff  (the 
Brant  girl's  aunt)  leaned  forward  to  say  enthusiastically: 
"And  now  we're  to  hear  Mr.  Ransom!" 

A  louder  buzz  rose  from  the  table,  and  the  heads  (with 
out  relaxing  their  upward  vigilance)  seemed  to  merge 
and  flow  together,  like  an  attentive  flood,  toward  the  upper 
end  of  the  horse-shoe,  where  all  the  threads  of  Margaret 
Ransom's  consciousness  were  suddenly  drawn  into  what 
seemed  a  small  speck,  no  more — a  black  speck  that  rose, 
hung  in  air,  dissolved  into  gyrating  gestures,  became  dis 
tended,  enormous,  preponderant — became  her  husband 
"speaking." 

"It's  the  heat — "  Margaret  gasped,  pressing  her  hand 
kerchief  to  her  whitening  lips,  and  finding  just  strength 
enough  left  to  push  back  farther  into  the  shadow. 

She  felt  a  touch  on  her  arm.  "It  is  horrible — shall  we 
go?"  a  voice  suggested;  and,  "Yes,  yes,  let  us  go,"  she 
whispered,  feeling,  with  a  great  throb  of  relief,  that 
to  be  the  only  possible,  the  only  conceivable,  solution. 
To  sit  and  listen  to  her  husband  now — how  could  she 
ever  have  thought  she  could  survive  it?  Luckily,  under 
the  lingering  hubbub  from  below,  his  opening  words 
were  inaudible,  and  she  had  only  to  run  the  gauntlet 
of  sympathetic  feminine  glances,  shot  after  her  between 
waving  fans  and  programmes,  as,  guided  by  Guy  Dawn- 
ish,  she  managed  to  reach  the  door.  It  was  really  so 
[145] 


THE   PRETEXT 

hot  that  even  Mrs.    Sheff   was   not   much   surprised — 
till  long  afterward. . . . 

The  winding  staircase  was  empty,  half  dark  and  blessedly 
silent.  In  a  committee  room  below  Dawnish  found  the  in 
evitable  water  jug,  and  filled  a  glass  for  her,  while  she 
leaned  back,  confronted  only  by  a  frowning  college  Presi 
dent  in  an  emblazoned  frame.  The  academic  frown  de 
scended  on  her  like  an  anathema  when  she  rose  and  fol 
lowed  her  companion  out  of  the  building. 

Hamblin  Hall  stands  at  the  end  of  the  long  green 
"Campus"  with  its  sextuple  line  of  elms — the  boast  and 
singularity  of  Wentworth.  A  pale  spring  moon,  rising  above 
the  dome  of  the  University  Library,  at  the  opposite  end  of 
the  elm- walk,  diffused  a  pearly  mildness  in  the  sky,  melted 
to  thin  haze  the  shadows  of  the  trees,  and  turned  to  golden 
yellow  the  lights  of  the  college  windows.  Against  this  soft 
suffusion  of  light  the  Library  cupola  assumed  a  Braman- 
tesque  grace,  the  white  steeple  of  the  congregational  church 
became  a  campanile  topped  by  a  winged  spirit,  and  the 
scant  porticoes  of  the  older  halls  the  colonnades  of  classic 
temples. 

"This  is  better — "  Dawnish  said,  as  they  passed  down 
the  steps  and  under  the  shadow  of  the  elms. 

They  moved  on  a  little  way  in  silence  before  he  began 
again:  "You're  too  tired  to  walk.  Let  us  sit  down  a  few 
minutes." 

[146] 


THE   PRETEXT 

Her  feet,  in  truth,  were  leaden,  and  not  far  off  a  group  of 
park  benches,  encircling  the  pedestal  of  a  patriot  in  bronze, 
invited  them  to  rest.  But  Dawnish  was  guiding  her  toward 
a  lateral  path  which  bent,  through  shrubberies,  toward 
a  strip  of  turf  between  two  buildings. 

"It  will  be  cooler  by  the  river,"  he  said,  moving  on  with 
out  waiting  for  a  possible  protest.  None  came:  it  seemed 
easier,  for  the  moment,  to  let  herself  be  led  without  any 
conventional  feint  of  resistance.  And  besides,  there  was 
nothing  wrong  about  this — the  wrong  would  have  been  in 
sitting  up  there  in  the  glare,  pretending  to  listen  to  her  hus 
band,  a  dutiful  wife  among  her  kind.  . . . 

The  path  descended,  as  both  knew,  to  the  chosen,  the 
inimitable  spot  of  Wentworth:  that  fugitive  curve  of  the 
river,  where,  before  hurrying  on  to  glut  the  brutal  industries 
of  South  Wentworth  and  Smedden,  it  simulated  for  a  few 
hundred  yards  the  leisurely  pace  of  an  ancient  university 
stream,  with  willows  on  its  banks  and  a  stretch  of  turf  ex 
tending  from  the  grounds  of  Hamblin  Hall  to  the  boat 
houses  at  the  farther  bend.  Here,  too,  were  benches  beneath 
the  willows,  and  so  close  to  the  river  that  the  voice  of  its 
gliding  softened  and  filled  out  the  reverberating  silence 
between  Margaret  and  her  companion,  and  made  her  feel 
that  she  knew  why  he  had  brought  her  there. 

"Do  you  feel  better?"  he  asked  gently  as  he  sat  down 
beside  her. 

"Oh,  yes.  I  only  needed  a  little  air." 
[147] 


THE   PRETEXT 

"I'm  so  glad  you  did.  Of  course  the  speeches  were  tre 
mendously  interesting — but  I  prefer  this.  What  a  good 
night!" 

"Yes." 

There  was  a  pause,  which  now,  after  all,  the  soothing 
accompaniment  of  the  river  seemed  hardly  sufficient  to 
fill. 

"I  wonder  what  time  it  is.  I  ought  to  be  going  home," 
Margaret  began  at  length. 

"Oh,  it's  not  late.  They'll  be  at  it  for  hours  in  there— 
yet." 

She  made  a  faint  inarticulate  sound.  She  wanted  to  say: 
"No — Robert's  speech  was  to  be  the  last — "  but  she  could 
not  bring  herself  to  pronounce  Ransom's  name,  and  at  the 
moment  no  other  way  of  refuting  her  companion's  state 
ment  occurred  to  her. 

The  young  man  leaned  back  luxuriously,  reassured  by 
her  silence. 

"You  see  it's  my  last  chance — and  I  want  to  make  the 
most  of  it." 

"Your  last  chance?"  How  stupid  of  her  to  repeat  his 
words  on  that  cooing  note  of  interrogation!  It  was  just 
such  a  lead  as  the  Brant  girl  might  have  given  him. 

"To  be  with  you — like  this.  I  haven't  had  so  many. 
And  there's  less  than  a  week  left." 

She  attempted  to  laugh.  "Perhaps  it  will  sound  longer 
if  you  call  it  five  days." 

[148] 


THE  PRETEXT 

The  flatness  of  that,  again!  And  she  knew  there  were 
people  who  called  her  intelligent.  Fortunately  he  did  not 
seem  to  notice  it;  but  her  laugh  continued  to  sound  in  her 
own  ears — the  coquettish  chirp  of  middle  age!  She  decided 
that  if  he  spoke  again — if  he  said  anything — she  would 
make  no  farther  effort  at  evasion:  she  would  take  it  directly, 
seriously,  frankly — she  would  not  be  doubly  disloyal. 

"Besides,"  he  continued,  throwing  his  arm  along  the 
back  of  the  bench,  and  turning  toward  her  so  that  his  face 
was  like  a  dusky  bas-relief  with  a  silver  rim — "besides, 
there's  something  I've  been  wanting  to  tell  you.'* 

The  sound  of  the  river  seemed  to  cease  altogether:  the 
whole  world  became  silent. 

Margaret  had  trusted  her  inspiration  farther  than  it  ap 
peared  likely  to  carry  her.  Again  she  could  think  of  nothing 
happier  than  to  repeat,  on  the  same  witless  note  of  interro 
gation:  "To  tell  me?" 

"You  only." 

The  constraint,  the  difficulty,  seemed  to  be  on  his  side 
now:  she  divined  it  by  the  renewed  shifting  of  his  atti 
tude — he  was  capable,  usually,  of  such  fine  intervals  of  im 
mobility — and  by  a  confusion  in  his  utterance  that  set  her 
own  voice  throbbing  in  her  throat. 

"You've  been  so  perfect  to  me,"  he  began  again.  "It's 
not  my  fault  if  you've  made  me  feel  that  you  would  under 
stand  everything — make  allowances  for  everything — see 
just  how  a  man  may  have  held  out,  and  fought  against  a 
[149] 


THE   PRETEXT 

thing — as  long  as  he  had  the  strength.  .  .  .  This  may  be 
my  only  chance;  and  I  can't  go  away  without  telling  you." 

He  had  turned  from  her  now,  and  was  staring  at  the 
river,  so  that  his  profile  was  projected  against  the  moon 
light  in  all  its  beautiful  young  dejection. 

There  was  a  slight  pause,  as  though  he  waited  for  her 
to  speak;  then  she  leaned  forward  and  laid  her  hand  on  his. 

"If  I  have  really  been — if  I  have  done  for  you  even  the 
least  part  of  what  you  say  .  .  .  what  you  imagine  . . .  will 
you  do  for  me,  now,  just  one  thing  in  return  ?" 

He  sat  motionless,  as  if  fearing  to  frighten  away  the  shy 
touch  on  his  hand,  and  she  left  it  there,  conscious  of  her 
gesture  only  as  part  of  the  high  ritual  of  their  farewell. 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  do  ?"  he  asked  in  a  low  tone. 

"Not  to  tell  me!"  she  breathed  on  a  deep  note  of  en 
treaty. 

"Not  to  tell  you—  ?" 

"Anything — anything — just  to  leave  our  .  .  .  our  friend 
ship  ...  as  it  has  been — as — as  a  painter,  if  a  friend  asked 
him,  might  leave  a  picture — not  quite  finished,  perhaps, 
.  .  .  but  all  the  more  exquisite.  ..." 

She  felt  the  hand  under  hers  slip  away,  recover  itself, 
and  seek  her  own,  which  had  flashed  out  of  reach  in  the 
same  instant — felt  the  start  that  swept  him  round  on  her 
as  if  he  had  been  caught  and  turned  about  by  the  shoulders. 

"You — you — ?"  he  stammered,  in  a  strange  voice  full 
of  fear  and  tenderness;  but  she  held  fast,  so  centred  in 
[150] 


THE   PRETEXT 

her  inexorable  resolve  that  she  was  hardly  conscious  of 
the  effect  her  words  might  be  producing. 

" Don't  you  see,"  she  hurried  on,  "don't  you  feel  how 
much  safer  it  is — yes,  I'm  willing  to  put  it  so! — how  much 
safer  to  leave  everything  undisturbed  .  .  .  just  as  ...  as  it 
has  grown  of  itself .  .  .  without  trying  to  say:  'It's  this  or 
that'  .  .  .  ?  It's  what  we  each  choose  to  call  it  to  ourselves, 
after  all,  isn't  it  ?  Don't  let  us  try  to  find  a  name  that .  .  . 
that  we  should  both  agree  upon  ...  we  probably  shouldn't 
succeed."  She  laughed  abruptly.  "And  ghosts  vanish 
when  one  names  them!"  she  ended  with  a  break  in  her 
voice. 

When  she  ceased  her  heart  was  beating  so  violently 
that  there  was  a  rush  in  her  ears  like  the  noise  of  the  river 
after  rain,  and  she  did  not  immediately  make  out  wrhat  he 
was  answering.  But  as  she  recovered  her  lucidity  she  said 
to  herself  that,  whatever  he  was  saying,  she  must  not  hear 
it;  and  she  began  to  speak  again,  half  playfully,  half  ap- 
pealingly,  with  an  eloquence  of  entreaty,  an  ingenuity  in 
argument,  of  which  she  had  never  dreamed  herself  cap 
able.  And  then,  suddenly,  strangling  hands  seemed  to 
reach  up  from  her  heart  to  her  throat,  and  she  had  to 
stop. 

Her  companion  remained  motionless.  He  had  not  tried 
to  regain  her  hand,  and  his  eyes  were  away  from  her,  on 
the  river.  But  his  nearness  had  become  something  formid 
able  and  exquisite — something  she  had  never  before 
[151] 


THE   PRETEXT 

imagined.  A  flush  of  guilt  swept  over  her — vague  reminis 
cences  of  French  novels  and  of  opera  plots.  This  was  what 
such  women  felt,  then  . . .  this  was  "shame.'* . . .  Phrases 
of  the  newspaper  and  the  pulpit  danced  before  her. . . .  She 
dared  not  speak,  and  his  silence  began  to  frighten  her. 
Had  ever  a  heart  beat  so  wildly  before  in  Wentworth  ? 

He  turned  at  last,  and  taking  her  two  hands,  quite  simply, 
kissed  them  one  after  the  other. 

"I  shall  never  forget — "  he  said  in  a  confused  voice, 
unlike  his  own. 

A  return  of  strength  enabled  her  to  rise,  and  even  to  let 
her  eyes  meet  his  for  a  moment. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said,  simply  also. 

She  turned  away  from  the  bench,  regaining  the  path  that 
led  back  to  the  college  buildings,  and  he  walked  beside 
her  in  silence.  When  they  reached  the  elm  walk  it  was 
dotted  with  dispersing  groups.  The  "speaking"  was  at  an 
end,  and  Hamblin  Hall  had  poured  its  audience  out  into 
the  moonlight.  Margaret  felt  a  rush  of  relief,  followed  by 
a  receding  wave  of  regret.  She  had  the  distinct  sensation 
that  her  hour — her  one  hour — was  over. 

One  of  the  groups  just  ahead  broke  up  as  they  ap 
proached,  and  projected  Ransom's  solid  bulk  against  the 
moonlight. 

"My  husband,"  she  said,  hastening  forward;  and  she 
never  afterward  forgot  the  look  of  his  back — heavy, 
round-shouldered,  yet  a  little  pompous — in  a  badly  fitting 
[152] 


r 

THE   PRETEXT 

overcoat  that  stood  out  at  the  neck  and  hid  his  collar.  She 
had  never  before  noticed  how  he  dressed. 


IV 

^  I  ^HEY  met  again,  inevitably,  before  Dawnish  left; 
•*•  but  the  thing  she  feared  did  not  happen — he  did 
not  try  to  see  her  alone. 

It  even  became  clear  to  her,  in  looking  back,  that  he 
had  deliberately  avoided  doing  so;  and  this  seemed  merely 
an  added  proof  of  his  " understanding,"  of  that  deep  un- 
definable  communion  that  set  them  alone  in  an  empty 
world,  as  if  on  a  peak  above  the  clouds. 

The  five  days  passed  in  a  flash;  and  when  the  last  one 
came,  it  brought  to  Margaret  Ransom  an  hour  of  weak 
ness,  of  profound  disorganisation,  when  old  barriers  fell, 
old  convictions  faded — when  to  be  alone  with  him  for  a 
moment  became,  after  all,  the  one  craving  of  her  heart. 
She  knew  he  was  coming  that  afternoon  to  say  "good-bye" 
— and  she  knew  also  that  Ransom  was  to  be  away  at  South 
Wentworth.  She  waited  alone  in  her  pale  little  drawing- 
room,  with  its  scant  kakemonos,  its  one  or  two  chilly  re 
productions  from  the  antique,  its  slippery  Chippendale 
chairs.  At  length  the  bell  rang,  and  her  world  became  a  rosy 
cloud — through  which  she  presently  discerned  the  austere 
form  of  Mrs.  Sperry,  wife  of  the  Professor  of  palaeontology, 
who  had  come  to  talk  over  with  her  the  next  winter's  pro- 
[153] 


THE   PRETEXT 

gramme  for  the  Higher  Thought  Club.  They  debated  the 
question  for  an  hour,  and  when  Mrs.  Sperry  departed 
Margaret  had  a  confused  impression  that  the  course 
was  to  deal  with  the  influence  of  the  First  Crusade  on 
the  development  of  European  architecture  —  but  the 
sentient  part  of  her  knew  only  that  Dawnish  had  not 
come. 

He  "bobbed  in,"  as  he  would  have  put  it,  after  dinner 
— having,  it  appeared,  run  across  Ransom  early  in  the  day, 
and  learned  that  the  latter  would  be  absent  till  evening. 
Margaret  was  in  the  study  with  her  husband  when  the  door 
opened  and  Dawnish  stood  there.  Ransom — who  had  not 
had  time  to  dress — was  seated  at  his  desk,  a  pile  of  shabby 
law  books  at  his  elbow,  the  light  from  a  hanging  lamp  fall 
ing  on  his  grayish  stubble  of  hair,  his  sallow  forehead  and 
spectacled  eyes.  Dawnish,  towering  higher  than  usual 
against  the  shadows  of  the  room,  and  refined  by  his  un 
usual  pallour,  hung  a  moment  on  the  threshold,  then  came 
in,  explaining  himself  profusely — laughing,  accepting  a 
cigar,  letting  Ransom  push  an  arm-chair  forward — a 
Dawnish  she  had  never  seen,  ill  at  ease,  ejaculatoryr  yet 
somehow  more  mature,  more  obscurely  in  command  of 
himself. 

Margaret  drew  back,  seating  herself  in  the  shade,  in  such 

a  way  that  she  saw  her  husband's  head  first,  and  beyond  it 

their  visitor's,  relieved  against  the  dusk  of  the  book  shelves. 

Her  heart  was  still — she  felt  no  throbbing  in  her  throat  or 

[154] 


THE   PRETEXT 

temples:  all  her  life  seemed  concentrated  in  the  hand  that 
lay  on  her  knee,  the  hand  he  would  touch  when  they  said 
good-bye. 

Afterward  her  heart  rang  all  the  changes,  and  there  was 
a  mood  in  which  she  reproached  herself  for  cowardice — 
for  having  deliberately  missed  her  one  moment  with  him, 
the  moment  in  which  she  might  have  sounded  the  depths 
of  life,  for  joy  or  anguish.  But  that  mood  was  fleeting  and 
infrequent.  In  quieter  hours  she  blushed  for  it — she  even 
trembled  to  think  that  he  might  have  guessed  such  a  re 
gret  in  her.  It  seemed  to  convict  her  of  a  lack  of  fineness 
that  he  should  have  had,  in  his  youth  and  his  power,  a 
tenderer,  surer  sense  of  the  peril  of  a  rash  touch — should 
have  handled  the  case  so  much  more  delicately. 

At  first  her  days  were  fire  and  the  nights  long  solemn 
vigils.  Her  thoughts  were  no.longer  vulgarised  and  defaced 
by  any  notion  of  "guilt."  She  was  ashamed  now  of  her 
shame.  What  had  happened  was  as  much  outside  the  sphere 
of  her  marriage  as  some  transaction  in  a  star.  It  had  simply 
given  her  a  secret  life  of  incommunicable  joys,  as  if  all  the 
wasted  springs  of  her  youth  had  been  stored  in  some  hidden 
pool,  and  she  could  return  there  now  to  bathe  in  them. 

After  that  there  came  a  phase  of  loneliness,  through 

which  the  life  about  her  loomed  phantasmal  and  remote. 

She  thought  the  dead  must  feel  thus,  repeating  the  vain 

gestures   of  the  living  beside   some  Stygian   shore.   She 

[155] 


THE   PRETEXT 

wondered  if  any  other  woman  had  lived  to  whom  nothing 
had  ever  happened  ?  And  then  his  first  letter  came 

It  was  a  charming  letter — a  perfect  letter.  The  little 
touch  of  awkwardness  and  constraint  under  its  boyish 
spontaneity  told  her  more  than  whole  pages  of  eloquence. 
He  spoke  of  their  friendship — of  their  good  days  together 
.  .  .  Ransom,  chancing  to  come  in  while  she  read,  noticed 
the  foreign  stamps;  and  she  was  able  to  hand  him  the  letter, 
saying  gaily:  "There's  a  message  for  you,"  and  knowing 
all  the  while  that  her  message  was  safe  in  her  heart. 

On  the  days  when  the  letters  came  the  outlines  of  things 
grew  indistinct,  and  she  could  never  afterward  remember 
what  she  had  done  or  how  the  business  of  life  had  been 
carried  on.  It  was  always  a  surprise  when  she  found  dinner 
on  the  table  as  usual,  and  Ransom  seated  opposite  to  her, 
running  over  the  evening  paper. 

But  though  Dawnish  continued  to  write,  with  all  the 
English  loyalty  to  the  outward  observances  of  friendship, 
his  communications  came  only  at  intervals  of  several 
weeks,  and  between  them  she  had  time  to  repossess  herself, 
to  regain  some  sort  of  normal  contact  with  life.  And  the 
customary,  the  recurring,  gradually  reclaimed  her,  the 
net  of  habit  tightened  again — her  daily  life  became  real, 
and  her  one  momentary  escape  from  it  an  exquisite  illu 
sion.  Not  that  she  ceased  to  believe  in  the  miracle  that  had 
befallen  her;  she  still  treasured  the  reality  of  her  one  mo 
ment  beside  the  river.  |iVhat  reason  was  there  for  doubting 
[156] 


^ 

THE   PRETEXT 

it?vShe  could  hear  the  ring  of  truth  in  young  Dawnish's 
voice:  "It's  not  my  fault  if  you've  made  me  feel  that  you 
would  understand  everything.  ..."  No!  she  believed  in 
her  miracle,  and  the  belief  sweetened  and  illumined  her 
life;  but  she  came  to  see  that  what  was  for  her  the  transfor 
mation  of  her  whole  being  might  well  have  been,  for  her 
companion,  a  mere  passing  explosion  of  gratitude,  of  boy 
ish  good-fellowship  touched  with  the  pang  of  leave-taking. 
She  even  reached  the  point  of  telling  herself  that  it  was 
" better  so":  this  view  of  the  episode  so  defended  it  from 
the  alternating  extremes  of  self-reproach  and  derision,  so 
enshrined  it  in  a  pale  immortality  to  which  she  could  make 
her  secret  pilgrimages  without  reproach. 

For  a  long  time  she  had  not  been  able  to  pass  by  the  bench 
under  the  willows — she  even  avoided  the  elm  walk  till 
autumn  had  stripped  its  branches.  But  every  day,  now, 
she  noted  a  step  toward  recovery;  and  at  last  a  day  came 
when,  walking  along  the  river,  she  said  to  herself,  as  she 
approached  the  bench:  "I  used  not  to  be  able  to  pass  here 
without  thinking  of  him;  and  now  I  am  not  thinking  o] 
him  at  all!" 

This  seemed  such  convincing  proof  of  her  recovery  that 
she  began,  as  spring  returned,  to  permit  herself,  now  and 
then,  a  quiet  session  on  the  bench — a  dedicated  hour  from 
which  she  went  back  fortified  to  her  task. 

She  had  not  heard  from  her  friend  for  six  weeks  or  more 
— the  intervals  between  his  letters  were  growing  longer. 
[157] 


THE   PRETEXT 

But  that  was  "best"  too,  and  she  was  not  anxious,  for  she 
knew  he  had  obtained  the  post  he  had  been  preparing 
for,  and  that  his  active  life  in  London  had  begun.  The 
thought  reminded  her,  one  mild  March  day,  that  in  leav 
ing  the  house  she  had  thrust  in  her  reticule  a  letter  from  a 
Wentworth  friend  who  was  abroad  on  a  holiday.  The  en 
velope  bore  the  London  post  mark,  a  fact  showing  that  the 

lady's  face  was  turned  toward  home.  Margaret  seated  her- 

• 
self  on  her  bench,  and  began  to  read  the  letter. 

The  London  described  was  that  of  shops  and  museums — 
as  remote  as  possible  from  the  setting  of  Guy  Dawnish's 
existence.  But  suddenly  Margaret's  eye  fell  on  his  name, 
and  the  page  began  to  tremble  in  her  hands. 

"I  heard  such  a  funny  thing  yesterday  about  your 
friend  Mr.  Dawnish.  We  went  to  a  tea  at  Professor  Bunce's 
(I  do  wish  you  knew  the  Bunces — their  atmosphere  is  so 
uplifting),  and  there  I  met  that  Miss  Bruce-Pringle  who 
came  out  last  year  to  take  a  course  in  histology  at  the  An 
nex.  Of  course  she  asked  about  you  and  Mr.  Ransom,  and 
then  she  told  me  she  had  just  seen  Mr.  Dawnish's  aunt — 
the  clever  one  he  was  always  talking  about,  Lady  Caroline 
something — and  that  they  were  all  in  a  dreadful  state  about 
him.  I  wonder  if  you  knew  he  was  engaged  when  he  went 
to  America  ?  He  never  mentioned  it  to  us.  She  said  it  was 
not  a  positive  engagement,  but  an  understanding  with  a 
girl  he  has  always  been  devoted  to,  who  lives  near  their 
place  in  Wiltshire;  and  both  families  expected  the  marriage 
[158] 


THE  PRETEXT 

to  take  place  as  soon  as  he  got  back.  It  seems  the  girl  is  an 
heiress  (you  know  how  low  the  English  ideals  are  compared 
with  ours),  and  Miss  Bruce-Pringle  said  his  relations  were 
perfectly  delighted  at  his  'being  provided  for,'  as  she  called 
it.  Well,  when  he  got  back  he  asked  the  girl  to  release  him; 
and  she  and  her  family  were  furious,  and  so  were  his 
people;  but  he  holds  out,  and  won't  many  her,  and  won't 
give  a  reason,  except  that  he  has  'formed  an  unfortunate 
attachment.'  Did  you  ever  hear  anything  so  peculiar? 
His  aunt,  who  is  quite  wild  about  it,  says  it  must  have 
happened  at  Wentworth,  because  he  didn't  go  anywhere 
else  in  America.  Do  you  suppose  it  could  have  been  the 
Brant  girl  ?  But  why  'unfortunate'  when  everybody  knows 
she  would  have  jumped  at  him?" 

Margaret  folded  the  letter  and  looked  out  across  the 
river.  It  was  not  the  same  river,  but  a  mystic  current  shot 
with  moonlight.  The  bare  willows  wove  a  leafy  veil  above 
her  head,  and  beside  her  she  felt  the  nearness  of  youth 
and  tempestuous  tenderness.  It  had  all  happened  just  here, 
on  this  very  seat  by  the  river — it  had  come  to  her,  and  passed 
her  by,  and  she  had  not  held  out  a  hand  to  detain  it.  ... 

Well!  Was  it  not,  by  that  very  abstention,  made  more 
deeply  and  ineffaceably  hers  ?  She  could  argue  thus  while 
she  had  thought  the  episode,  on  his  side,  a  mere  transient 
effect  of  propinquity;  but  now  that  she  knew  it  had  altered 
the  whole  course  of  his  life,  now  that  it  took  on  substance 
and  reality,  asserted  a  separate  existence  outside  of  her 
[159] 


THE   PRETEXT 

own  troubled  consciousness — now  it  seemed  almost  cow 
ardly  to  have  missed  her  share  in  it. 

She  walked  home  in  a  dream.  Now  and  then,  when  she 
passed  an  acquaintance,  she  wondered  if  the  pain  and 
glory  were  written  on  her  face.  But  Mrs.  Sperry,  who 
stopped  her  at  the  corner  of  Maverick  Street  to  say  a 
word  about  the  next  meeting  of  the  Higher  Thought 
Club,  seemed  to  remark  no  change  in  her. 

When  she  reached  home  Ransom  had  not  yet  returned 
from  the  office,  and  she  went  straight  to  the  library  to  tidy 
his  writing-table.  It  was  part  of  her  daily  duty  to  bring  order 
out  of  the  chaos  of  his  papers,  and  of  late  she  had  fastened 
on  such  small  recurring  tasks  as  some  one  falling  over  a 
precipice  might  snatch  at  the  weak  bushes  in  its  clefts. 

When  she  had  sorted  the  letters  she  took  up  some  pam 
phlets  and  newspapers,  glancing  over  them  to  see  if  they 
were  to  be  kept.  Among  the  papers  was  a  page  torn  from 
a  London  Times  of  the  previous  month.  Her  eye  ran  down 
its  columns  and  suddenly  a  paragraph  flamed  out. 

"We  are  requested  to  state  that  the  marriage  arranged 
between  Mr.  Guy  Dawnish,  son  of  the  late  Colonel  the 
Hon.  Roderick  Dawnish,  of  Malby,  Wilts,  and  Gwendolen, 
daughter  of  Samuel  Matcher,  Esq.,  of  Armingham  Towers, 
Wilts,  will  not  take  place." 

Margaret  dropped  the  paper  and  sat  down,  hiding  her 
face  against  the  stained  baize  of  the  desk.  She  remembered 
the  photograph  of  the  tennis-court  at  Guise — she  re- 
[160] 


THE   PRETEXT 

membered  the  handsome  girl  at  whom  Guy  Dawnish 
looked  up,  laughing.  A  gust  of  tears  shook  her,  loosening 
the  dry  surface  of  conventional  feeling,  welling  up  from 
unsuspected  depths.  She  was  sorry — very  sorry,  yet  so 
glad — so  ineffably,  impenitently  glad. 


'T^HERE  came  a  reaction  in  which  she  decided  to  write 
•*•  to  him.  She  even  sketched  out  a  letter  of  sisterly, 
almost  motherly,  remonstrance,  in  which  she  reminded 
him  that  he  "still  had  all  his  life  before  him."  But  she  re 
flected  that  so,  after  all,  had  she;  and  that  seemed  to  weaken 
the  argument. 

In  the  end  she  decided  not  to  send  the  letter.  He  had 
never  spoken  to  her  of  his  engagement  to  Gwendolen 
Matcher,  and  his  letters  had  contained  no  allusion  to  any 
sentimental  disturbance  in  his  life.  She  had  only  his  few 
broken  words,  that  night  by  the  river,  on  which  to  build 
her  theory  of  the  case.  But  illuminated  by  the  phrase  "an 
unfortunate  attachment"  the  theory  towered  up,  distinct 
and  immovable,  like  some  high  landmark  by  which  trav 
ellers  shape  their  course.  She  had  been  loved — extraordi 
narily  loved.  But  he  had  chosen  that  she  should  know  of  it 
by  his  silence  rather  than  by  his  speech.  He  had  understood 
that  only  on  those  terms  could  their  transcendant  com 
munion  continue — that  he  must  lose  her  to  keep  her.  To 
[161] 


THE   PRETEXT 

break  that  silence  would  be  like  spilling  a  cup  of  water  in 
a  waste  of  sand.  There  would  be  nothing  left  for  her  thirst. 
Her  life,  thenceforward,  was  bathed  in  a  tranquil  beauty. 
The  days  flowed  by  like  a  river  beneath  the  moon — each 
ripple  caught  the  brightness  and  passed  it  on.  She  began  to 
take  a  renewed  interest  in  her  familiar  round  of  duties. 
The  tasks  which  had  once  seemed  colourless  and  irksome 
had  now  a  kind  of  sacrificial  sweetness,  a  symbolic  mean 
ing  into  which  she  alone  was  initiated.  She  had  been  rest 
less — had  longed  to  travel;  now  she  felt  that  she  should 
never  again  care  to  leave  Wentworth.  But  if  her  desire  to 
wander  had  ceased  she  travelled  in  spirit,  performing  in 
visible  pilgrimages  in  the  footsteps  of  her  friend.  She  re 
gretted  that  her  one  short  visit  to  England  had  taken  her 
so  little  out  of  London — that  her  acquaintance  with  the 
landscape  had  been  formed  chiefly  through  the  windows 
of  a  railway  carriage.  She  threw  herself  into  the  architec 
tural  studies  of  the  Higher  Thought  Club,  and  distinguished 
herself,  at  the  spring  meetings,  by  her  fluency,  her  compe 
tence,  her  inexhaustible  curiosity  on  the  subject  of  the 
growth  of  English  Gothic.  She  ransacked  the  shelves  of 
the  college  library,  she  borrowed  photographs  of  the  ca 
thedrals,  she  pored  over  the  folio  pages  of  "The  Seats  of 
Noblemen  and  Gentlemen."  She  was  like  some  banished 
princess  who  learns  that  she  has  inherited  a  domain  in 
her  own  country,  who  knows  that  she  will  never  see  it, 
yet  feels,  wherever  she  walks,  its  soil  beneath  her  feet. 
[162] 


THE   PRETEXT 

May  was  half  over,  and  the  Higher  Thought  Club  was 
to  hold  its  last  meeting,  previous  to  the  college  festivities 
which,  in  early  June,  agreeably  disorganised  the  social 
routine  of  Wentworth.  The  meeting  was  to  take  place  in 
Margaret  Ransom's  drawing-room,  and  on  the  day  before 
she  sat  upstairs  preparing  for  her  dual  duties  as  hostess 
and  orator — for  she  had  been  invited  to  read  the  final 
paper  of  the  course. 

In  order  to  sum  up  with  precision  her  conclusions  on 
the  subject  of  English  Gothic,  she  had  been  re-reading  an 
analysis  of  the  structural  features  of  the  principal  English 
cathedrals;  and  she  was  murmuring  over  to  herself  the 
phrase:  "The  longitudinal  arches  of  Lincoln  have  an  ap 
proximately  elliptical  form  "  when  there  came  a  knock  on 
the  door,  and  Maria's  voice  announced:  "There's  a  lady 
down  in  the  parlour." 

Margaret's  soul  dropped  from  the  heights  of  the  shadowy 
vaulting  to  the  dead  level  of  an  afternoon  call  at  Went 
worth. 

"A  lady?  Did  she  give  no  name?" 

Maria  became  confused.  "She  only  said  she  was  a 
lady — "  and  in  reply  to  her  mistress's  look  of  mild  surprise: 
"Well,  ma'am,  she  told  me  so  three  or  four  times  over." 

Margaret  laid  her  book  down,  leaVing  it  open  at  the  de 
scription  of  Lincoln,  and  slowly  descended  the  stairs.  As 
she  did  so,  she  repeated  to  herself:  "The  longitudinal 
arches  are  elliptical." 

[163] 


THE   PRETEXT 

On  the  threshold  below,  she  had  the  odd  impression 
that  her  bare  inanimate  drawing-room  was  brimming 
with  life  and  noise — an  impression  produced,  as  she  pres 
ently  perceived,  by  the  resolute  forward  dash — it  was  al 
most  a  pounce — of  the  one  small  figure  restlessly  measur 
ing  its  length. 

The  dash  checked  itself  within  a  yard  of  Margaret, 
and  the  lady — a  stranger — held  back  long  enough  to  stamp 
on  her  hostess  a  sharp  impression  of  sallowness,  leanness, 
keenness,  before  she  said,  in  a  voice  that  might  have  been 
addressing  an  unruly  committee  meeting:  "I  am  Lady 
Caroline  Duckett — a  fact  I  found  it  impossible  to  make 
clear  to  the  young  woman  who  let  me  in." 

A  warm  wave  rushed  up  from  Margaret's  heart  to  her 
face.  She  held  out  both  hands  impulsively.  "Oh,  I'm  so 
glad — I'd  no  idea — " 

Her  voice  sank  under  her  visitor's  impartial  scrutiny. 

"I  don't  wonder,"  said  the  latter  dryly.  "I  suppose  she 
didn't  mention  either  that  my  object  in  calling  here  was 
to  see  Mrs.  Ransom  ? " 

"Oh,  yes — won't  you  sit  down?"  Margaret  pushed  a 
chair  forward.  She  seated  herself  at  a  little  distance,  brain 
and  heart  humming  with  a  confused  interchange  of  signals. 
This  dark  sharp  woman  was  his  aunt — the  "clever  aunt" 
who  had  had  such  a  hard  life,  but  had  always  managed  to 
keep  her  head  above  water.  Margaret  remembered  that 
Guy  had  spoken  of  her  kindness — perhaps  she  would  seem 
[164] 


THE   PRETEXT 

kinder  when  they  had  talked  together  a  little.  Meanwhile 
the  first  impression  she  produced  was  of  an  amplitude  out 
of  all  proportion  to  her  somewhat  scant  exterior.  With  her 
small  flat  figure,  her  shabby  heterogeneous  dress,  she  was 
as  dowdy  as  any  Professor's  wife  at  Wentworth;  but  her 
dowdiness  (Margaret  borrowed  a  literary  analogy  to  de 
fine  it),  her  dowdiness  was  somehow  "of  the  centre." 
Like  the  insignificant  emissary  of  a  great  power,  she  was 
to  be  judged  rather  by  her  passports  than  her  person. 

While  Margaret  was  receiving  these  impressions,  Lady 
Caroline,  with  quick  bird-like  twists  of  her  head,  was 
gathering  others  from  the  pale  void  spaces  of  the  drawing- 
room.  Her  eyes,  divided  by  a  sharp  nose  like  a  bill,  seemed 
to  be  set  far  enough  apart  to  see  at  separate  angles;  but 
suddenly  she  bent  both  of  them  on  Margaret. 

"This  is  Mrs.  Ransom's  house?"  she  asked,  with  an 
emphasis  on  the  verb  that  gave  a  distinct  hint  of  unfulfilled 
expectations. 

Margaret  assented. 

"Because  your  American  houses,  especially  in  the  pro 
vincial  towns,  all  look  so  remarkably  alike,  that  I  thought 
I  might  have  been  mistaken;  and  as  my  time  is  extremely 
limited — in  fact  I'm  sailing  on  Wednesday — " 

She  paused  long  enough  to  let  Margaret  say:  "I  had  no 
idea  you  were  in  America." 

Lady  Caroline  made  no  attempt  to  take  this  up. — "and 
so  much  of  it,"  she  carried  on  her  sentence,  "has  been 
[165] 


THE   PRETEXT 

wasted  in  talking  to  people  I  really  hadn't  the  slightest 
desire  to  see,  that  you  must  excuse  me  if  I  go  straight  to 
the  point." 

Margaret  felt  a  sudden  tension  of  the  heart.  "Of 
course,"  she  said,  while  a  voice  within  her  cried:  "He's 
dead — he  has  left  me  a  message." 

There  was  another  pause;  then  Lady  Caroline  went  on 
with  increasing  asperity:  "So  that — in  short — if  I  could 
see  Mrs.  Ransom  at  once — " 

Margaret  looked  up  in  surprise.  "I  am  Mrs.  Ransom," 
she  said. 

The  other  stared  a  moment,  with  much  the  same  look 
of  cautious  incredulity  that  had  marked  her  inspection 
of  the  drawing-room.  Then  light  came  to  her. 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  should  have  said  that  I  wished 
to  see  Mrs.  Robert  Ransom,  not  Mrs.  Ransom.  But  I  under 
stood  that  in  the  States  you  don't  make  those  distinctions." 
She  paused  a  moment,  and  then  went  on,  before  Margaret 
could  answer:  "Perhaps,  after  all,  it's  as  well  that  I  should 
see  you  instead,  since  you're  evidently  one  of  the  household 
— your  son  and  his  wife  live  with  you,  I  suppose  ?  Yes,  on 
the  whole,  then,  it's  better — I  shall  be  able  to  talk  so  much 
more  frankly."  She  spoke  as  if,  as  a  rule,  circumstances 
prevented  her  giving  rein  to  this  prosperity.  "And  frank 
ness,  of  course,  is  the  only  way  out  of  this — this  extremely 
tiresome  complication.  You  know,  I  suppose,  that  my 
nephew  thinks  he's  in  love  with  your  daughter-in-law?" 
[166]  ' 


THE   PRETEXT 

Margaret  made  a  slight  movement,  but  her  visitor  pressed 
on  without  heeding  it.  "Oh,  don't  fancy,  please,  that  I'm 
pretending  to  take  a  high  moral  ground — though  his 
mother  does,  poor  dear!  I  can  perfectly  imagine  that  in  a 
place  like  this — I've  just  been  walking  about  it  for  two 
hours — a  young  man  of  Guy's  age  would  have  to  provide 
himself  with  some  sort  of  distraction;  and  he's  not  the  kind 
to  go  in  for  anything  objectionable.  Oh,  we  quite  allow 
for  that — we  should  allow  for  the  whole  affair,  if  it  hadn't 
so  preposterously  ended  in  his  throwing  over  the  girl  he 
was  engaged  to,  and  upsetting  an  arrangement  that  af 
fected  a  number  of  people  besides  himself.  I  understand 
that  in  the  States  it's  different — the  young  people  have 
only  themselves  to  consider.  In  England — in  our  class,  I 
mean — a  great  deal  may  depend  on  a  young  man's  mak 
ing  a  good  match;  and  in  Guy's  case  I  may  say  that  his 
mother  and  sisters  (I  won't  include  myself,  though  I 
might)  have  been  simply  stranded — thrown  overboard — 
by  his  freak.  You  can  understand  how  serious  it  is  when 
I  tell  you  that  it's  that  and  nothing  else  that  has  brought 
me  all  the  way  to  America.  And  my  first  idea  was  to  go 
straight  to  your  daughter-in-law,  since  her  influence  is  the 
only  thing  we  can  count  on  now,  and  put  it  to  her  fairly, 
as  I'm  putting  it  to  you.  But,  on  the  whole,  I  dare  say  it's 
better  to  see  you  first — you  might  give  me  an  idea  of  the 
line  to  take  with  her.  I'm  prepared  to  throw  myself  on  her 
mercy!" 

[167] 


THE   PRETEXT 

Margaret  rose  from  her  chair,  outwardly  rigid  in  pro 
portion  to  her  inward  tremor. 

"You  don't  understand — "  she  began. 

Lady  Caroline  brushed  the  interruption  aside.  "Oh, 
but  I  do — completely !  I  cast  no  reflection  on  your  daughter- 
in-law.  Guy  has  made  it  quite  clear  to  us  that  his  attach 
ment  is — has,  in  short,  not  been  rewarded.  But  don't  you 
see  that  that's  the  worst  part  of  it  ?  There'd  be  much  more 
hope  of  his  recovering  if  Mrs.  Robert  Ransom  had — 
had—" 

Margaret's  voice  broke  from  her  in  a  cry.  "I  am  Mrs. 
Robert  Ransom,"  she  said. 

If  Lady  Caroline  Duckett  had  hitherto  given  her  hostess 
the  impression  of  a  person  not  easily  silenced,  this  fact  added 
sensibly  to  the  effect  produced  by  the  intense  stillness  which 
now  fell  on  her. 

She  sat  quite  motionless,  her  large  bangled  hands 
clasped  about  the  meagre  fur  boa  she  had  unwound  from 
her  neck  on  entering,  her  rusty  black  veil  pushed  up  to 
the  edge  of  a  "fringe"  of  doubtful  authenticity,  her  thin 
lips  parted  on  a  gasp  that  seemed  to  sharpen  itself  on 
the  edges  of  her  teeth.  So  overwhelming  and  helpless  was 
her  silence  that  Margaret  began  to  feel  a  motion  of  pity 
beneath  her  indignation — a  desire  at  least  to  facilitate  the 
excuses  which  must  terminate  their  disastrous  colloquy. 
But  when  Lady  Caroline  found  voice  she  did  not  use  it  to 
excuse  herself. 

[168] 


THE   PRETEXT 

"You  can't  be,"  she  said,  quite  simply. 

"Can't  be?"  Margaret  stammered,  with  a  flushing 
cheek. 

"I  mean,  it's  some  mistake.  Are  there  two  Mrs.  Rob 
ert  Ransoms  in  the  same  town?  Your  family  arrange 
ments  are  so  extremely  puzzling."  She  had  a  farther  rush 
of  enlightenment.  "Oh,  I  see!  I  ought  of  course  to  have 
asked  for  Mrs.  Robert  Ransom  Junior!" 

The  idea  sent  her  to  her  feet  with  a  haste  which  showed 
her  impatience  to  make  up  for  lost  time. 

"There  is  no  other  Mrs.  Robert  Ransom  at  Went- 
worth,"  said  Margaret. 

"No  other — no  'Junior'?  Are  you  sure  ?"  Lady  Caro 
line  fell  back  into  her  seat  again.  "Then  I  simply  don't 
see,"  she  murmured. 

Margaret's  blush  had  fixed  itself  on  her  throbbing  fore 
head.  She  remained  standing,  while  her  strange  visitor 
continued  to  gaze  at  her  with  a  perturbation  in  which  the 
consciousness  of  indiscretion  had  evidently  as  yet  no 
part. 

"I  simply  don't  see,"  she  repeated. 

Suddenly  she  sprang  up,  and  advancing  to  Margaret, 
laid  an  inspired  hand  on  her  arm.  "But,  my  dear  woman, 
you  can  help  us  out  all  the  same;  you  can  help  us  to  find 
out  who  it  is — and  you  will,  won't  you  ?  Because,  as  it's 
not  you,  you  can't  in  the  least  mind  what  I've  been  say- 
ing-" 

[169] 


THE   PRETEXT 

Margaret,  freeing  her  arm  from  her  visitor's  hold, 
drew  back  a  step;  but  Lady  Caroline  instantly  rejoined 
her. 

"Of  course,  I  can  see  that  if  it  had  been,  you  might 
have  been  annoyed:  I  dare  say  I  put  the  case  stupidly — 
but  I'm  so  bewildered  by  this  new  development — by  his 
using  you  all  this  time  as  a  pretext— that  I  really  don't 
know  where  to  turn  for  light  on  the  mystery — " 

She  had  Margaret  in  her  imperious  grasp  again,  but 
the  latter  broke  from  her  with  a  more  resolute  gesture. 

"I'm  afraid  I  have  no  light  to  give  you,"  she  began; 
but  once  more  Lady  Caroline  caught  her  up. 

"Oh,  but  do  please  understand  me!  I  condemn  Guy 
most  strongly  for  using  your  name — when  we  ah1  know 
you'd  been  so  amazingly  kind  to  him!  I  haven't  a  word 
to  say  in  his  defence — but  of  course  the  important  thing 
now  is:  who  is  the  woman,  since  you're  not  ?" 

The  question  rang  out  loudly,  as  if  all  the  pale  puritan 
corners  of  the  room  flung  it  back  with  a  shudder  at  the 
speaker.  In  the  silence  that  ensued  Margaret  felt  the 
blood  ebbing  back  to  her  heart;  then  she  said,  in  a  dis 
tinct  and  level  voice:  "I  know  nothing  of  the  history  of 
Mr.  Dawnish." 

Lady  Caroline  gave  a  stare  and  a  gasp.  Her  distracted 
hand  groped  for  her  boa,  and  she  began  to  wind  it  mechan 
ically  about  her  long  neck. 

"It  would  really  be  an  enormous  help  to  us — and  to 
[170] 


THE   PRETEXT 

poor  Gwendolen  Matcher,"  she  persisted  pleadingly. 
"And  you'd  be  doing  Guy  himself  a  good  turn." 

Margaret  remained  silent  and  motionless  while  her 
visitor  drew  on  one  of  the  worn  gloves  she  had  pulled  off 
to  adjust  her  veil.  Lady  Caroline  gave  the  veil  a  final 
twitch. 

"I've  come  a  tremendously  long  way,"  she  said,  "and, 
since  it  isn't  you,  I  can't  think  why  you  won't  help  me " 

When  the  door  had  closed  on  her  visitor  Margaret  Ran 
som  went  slowly  up  the  stairs  to  her  room.  As  she  dragged 
her  feet  from  one  step  to  another,  she  remembered  how 
she  had  sprung  up  the  same  steep  flight  after  that  visit 
of  Guy  Dawnish's  when  she  had  looked  in  the  glass  and 
seen  on  her  face  the  blush  of  youth. 

When  she  reached  her  room  she  bolted  the  door  as  she 
had  done  that  day,  and  again  looked  at  herself  in  the  nar 
row  mirror  above  her  dressing-table.  It  was  just  a  year 
since  then — the  elms  were  budding  again,  the  willows 
hanging  their  green  veil  above  the  bench  by  the  river. 
But  there  was  no  trace  of  youth  left  in  her  face — she  saw 
it  now  as  others  had  doubtless  always  seen  it.  If  it  seemed 
as  it  did  to  Lady  Caroline  Duckett,  what  look  must  it 
have  worn  to  the  fresh  gaze  of  young  Guy  Dawnish  ? 

A  pretext — she  had  been  a  pretext.  He  had  used  her 
name  to  screen  some  one  else — or  perhaps  merely  to  es 
cape  from  a  situation  of  which  he  was  weary.  She  did  not 
[171] 


r 


THE   PRETEXT 

care  to  conjecture  what  his  motive  had  been  —  everything 
connected  with  him  had  grown  so  remote  and  alien.  She 
felt  no  anger  —  only  an  unspeakable  sadness,  a  sadness 
which  she  knew  would  never  be  appeased. 

She  looked  at  herself  long  and  steadily:  she  wished  to 
clear  her  eyes  of  all  illusions.  Then  she  turned  away  and 
took  her  usual  seat  beside  her  work-  table.  From  where 
she  sat  she  could  look  down  the  empty  elm-shaded  street, 
up  which,  at  this  hour  every  day,  she  was  sure  to  see  her 
husband's  figure  advancing.  She  would  see  it  presently 
—  she  would  see  it  for  many  years  to  come.  She  had  an 
aching  vision  of  the  length  of  the  years  that  stretched  before 
her.  Strange  that  one  who  was  not  young  should  still,  in 
all  likelihood,  have  so  long  to  live! 

Nothing  was  changed  in  the  setting  of  her  life,  perhaps 
nothing  would  ever  change  in  it.  She  would  certainly  live 
and  die  in  Wentworth.  And  meanwhile  the  days  would 
go  on  as  usual,  bringing  the  usual  obligations.  As  the  word 
flitted  through  her  brain  she  remembered  that  she  had 
still  to  put  the  finishing  touches  to  the  paper  she  was  to 
read  the  next  afternoon  at  the  meeting  of  the  Higher 
Thought  Club. 

The  book  she  had  been  reading  lay  face  downward 
beside  her,  where  she  had  left  it  an  hour  ago.  She  took  it 
up,  and  slowly  and  painfully,  like  a  child  laboriously 
spelling  out  the  syllables,  she  went  on  with  the  rest  of  the 
sentence: 

[172] 


THE   PRETEXT 

— "and  they  spring  from  a  level  not  much  above  that 
of  the  springing  of  the  transverse  and  diagonal  ribs,  which 
are  so  arranged  as  to  give  a  convex  curve  to  the  surface 
of  the  vaulting  conoid." 

I 
v 


[173] 


(« 


THE  VERDICT 


THE  VERDICT 

I  HAD  always  thought  Jack  Gisburn  rather  a  cheap 
genius — though  a  good  fellow  enough — so  it  was  no 
great  surprise  to  me  to  hear  that,  in  the  height  of  his 
glory,  he  had  dropped  his  painting,  married  a  rich  widow, 
and  established  himself  in  a  villa  on  the  Riviera.  (Though 
I  rather  thought  it  would  have  been  Rome  or  Florence.) 
"The  height  of  his  glory" — that  was  what  the  women 
called  it.  I  can  hear  Mrs.  Gideon  Thwing — his  last  Chi 
cago  sitter — deploring  his  unaccountable  abdication. 
"Of  course  it's  going  to  send  the  value  of  my  picture 
'way  up;  but  I  don't  think  of  that,  Mr.  Rickham — the 
loss  to  Arrt  is  all  I  think  of."  The  word,  on  Mrs.  Thwing's 
lips,  multiplied  its  rs  as  though  they  were  reflected  in  an 
endless  vista  of  mirrors.  And  it  was  not  only  the  Mrs. 
Thwings  who  mourned.  Had  not  the  .exquisite  Hermia 
Croft,  at  the  last  Grafton  Gallery  show,  stopped  me  be 
fore  Gisburn's  "Moon-dancers"  to  say,  with  tears  in  her 
eyes:  "We  shall  not  look  upon  its  like  again"  ? 

Well! — even  through  the  prism  of  Hermia's  tears  I  felt 
able  to  face  the  fact  with  equanimity.  Poor  Jack  Gisburn! 
The  women  had  made  him — it  was  fitting  that  they  should 
mourn  him.  Among  his  own  sex  fewer  regrets  were  heard, 
and  in  his  own  trade  hardly  a  murmur.  Professional  jeal- 
[177] 


THE   VERDICT 

ousy  ?  Perhaps.  If  it  were,  the  honour  of  the  craft  was  vindi 
cated  by  little  Claude  Nutley,  who,  in  all  good  faith, 
brought  out  in  the  Burlington  a  very  handsome  "obituary" 
on  Jack — one  of  those  showy  articles  stocked  with  random 
technicalities  that  I  have  heard  (I  won't  say  by  whom) 
compared  to  Gisburn's  painting.  And  so — his  resolve  be 
ing  apparently  irrevocable — the  discussion  gradually  died 
out,  and,  as  Mrs.  Thwing  had  predicted,  the  price  of 
"Gisburns"  went  up. 

It  was  not  till  three  years  later  that,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  weeks'  idling  on  the  Riviera,  it  suddenly  occurred  to 
me  to  wonder  why  Gisburn  had  given  up  his  painting. 
On  reflection,  it  really  was  a  tempting  problem.  To  accuse 
his  wife  would  have  been  too  easy — his  fair  sitters  had  been 
denied  the  solace  of  saying  that  Mrs.  Gisburn  had  "dragged 
him  down."  For  Mrs.  Gisburn — as  such — had  not  ex 
isted  till  nearly  a  year  after  Jack's  resolve  had  been  taken. 
It  might  be  that  he  had  married  her — since  he  liked  his 
ease — because  he  didn't  want  to  go  on  painting;  but  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  prove  that  he  had  given  up  his 
painting  because  he  had  married  her. 

Of  course,  if  she  had  not  dragged  him  down,  she  had 
equally,  as  Miss  Croft  contended,  failed  to  "lift  him  up" 
— she  had  not  led  him  back  to  the  easel.  To  put  the  brush 
into  his  hand  again — what  a  vocation  for  a  wife!  But 
Mrs.  Gisburn  appeared  to  have  disdained  it — and  I  felt 
it  might  be  interesting  to  find  out  why. 
[178] 


THE   VERDICT 

The  desultory  life  of  the  Riviera  lends  itself  to  such  pure 
ly  academic  speculations;  and  having,  on  my  way  to  Monte 
Carlo,  caught  a  glimpse  of  Jack's  balustrated  terraces 
between  the  pines,  I  had  myself  borne  thither  the  next  day. 

I  found  the  couple  at  tea  beneath  their  palm-trees;  and 
Mrs.  Gisburn's  welcome  was  so  genial  that,  in  the  ensuing 
weeks,  I  claimed  it  frequently.  It  was  not  that  my  hostess 
was  "interesting":  on  that  point  I  could  have  given  Miss 
Croft  the  fullest  reassurance.  It  was  just  because  she  was 
not  interesting — if  I  may  be  pardoned  the  bull — that  I 
found  her  so.  For  Jack,  all  his  life,  had  been  surrounded 
by  interesting  women:  they  had  fostered  his  art,  it  had 
been  reared  in  the  hot-house  of  their  adulation.  And  it 
was  therefore  instructive  to  note  what  effect  the  "deaden 
ing  atmosphere  of  mediocrity"  (I  quote  Miss  Croft)  was 
having  on  him. 

I  have  mentioned  that  Mrs.  Gisburn  was  rich;  and  it 
was  immediately  perceptible  that  her  husband  was  ex 
tracting  from  this  circumstance  a  delicate  but  substantial 
satisfaction.  It  is,  as  a  rule,  the  people  who  scorn  money 
who  get  most  out  of  it;  and  Jack's  elegant  disdain  of  his 
wife's  big  balance  enabled  him,  with  an  appearance  of 
perfect  good-breeding,  to  transmute  it  into  objects  of  art 
and  luxury.  To  the  latter,  I  must  add,  he  remained  rela 
tively  indifferent;  but  he  was  buying  Renaissance  bronzes 
and  eighteenth-century  pictures  with  a  discrimination 
that  bespoke  the  amplest  resources. 
[179] 


THE   VERDICT 

"Money's  only  excuse  is  to  put  beauty  into  circula 
tion,"  was  one  of  the  axioms  he  laid  down  across  the  Sevres 
and  silver  of  an  exquisitely  appointed  luncheon-table, 
when,  on  a  later  day,  I  had  again  run  over  from  Monte 
Carlo;  and  Mrs.  Gisburn,  beaming  on  him,  added  for 
my  enlightenment:  "Jack  is  so  morbidly  sensitive  to  every 
form  of  beauty.'* 

Poor  Jack!  It  had  always  been  his  fate  to  have  women 
say  such  things  of  him:  the  fact  should  be  set  down  in  ex 
tenuation.  What  struck  me  now  was  that,  for  the  first  time, 
he  resented  the  tone.  I  had  seen  him,  so  often,  basking 
under  similar  tributes — was  it  the  conjugal  note  that  robbed 
them  of  their  savour?  No — for,  oddly  enough,  it  became 
apparent  that  he  was  fond  of  Mrs.  Gisburn — fond  enough 
not  to  see  her  absurdity.  It  was  his  own  absurdity  he  seemed 
to  be  wincing  under — his  own  attitude  as  an  object  for 
garlands  and  incense. 

"My  dear,  since  I've  chucked  painting  people  don't 
say  that  stuff  about  me — they  say  it  about  Victor  Grindle," 
was  his  only  protest,  as  he  rose  from  the  table  and  strolled 
out  onto  the  sunlit  terrace. 

I  glanced  after  him,  struck  by  his  last  word.  Victor 
Grindle  was,  in  fact,  becoming  the  man  of  the  moment — 
as  Jack  himself,  one  might  put  it,  had  been  the  man  of  the 
hour.  The  younger  artist  was  said  to  have  formed  himself 
at  my  friend's  feet,  and  I  wondered  if  a  tinge  of  jealousy 
underlay  the  latter's  mysterious  abdication.  But  no — for 
[180] 


THE   VERDICT 

it  was  not  till  after  that  event  that  the  fashionable  drawing- 
rooms  had  begun  to  display  their  "Grindles." 

I  turned  to  Mrs.  Gisburn,  who  had  lingered  to  give  a 
lump  of  sugar  to  her  spaniel  in  the  dining-room. 

"Why  has  he  chucked  painting?"  I  asked  abruptly. 

She  raised  her  eyebrows  with  a  hint  of  good-humoured 
surprise. 

"Oh,  he  doesn't  have  to  now,  you  know;  and  I  want 
him  to  enjoy  himself,"  she  said  quite  simply. 

I  looked  about  the  spacious  white-panelled  room,  with 
its  jamille-verte  vases  repeating  the  tones  of  the  pale  dam 
ask  curtains,  and  its  eighteenth-century  pastels  in  deli 
cate  faded  frames. 

"Has  he  chucked  his  pictures  too?  I  haven't  seen  a 
single  one  in  the  house." 

A  slight  shade  of  constraint  crossed  Mrs.  Gisburn's 
open  countenance.  "It's  his  ridiculous  modesty,  you  know. 
He  says  they're  not  fit  to  have  about;  he's  sent  them  all 
away  except  one — my  portrait — and  that  I  have  to  keep 
upstairs." 

His  ridiculous  modesty — Jack's  modesty  about  his 
pictures?  My  curiosity  was  growing  like  the  bean-stalk. 
I  said  persuasively  to  my  hostess:  "I  must  really  see  your 
portrait,  you  know." 

She  glanced  out  almost  timorously  at  the  terrace  where 
her  husband,  lounging  in  a  hooded  chair,  had  lit  a  cigar  and 
drawn  the  Russian  deerhound's  head  between  his  knees. 
[181] 


THE   VERDICT 

"Well,  come  while  he's  not  looking,"  she  said,  with  a 
laugh  that  tried  to  hide  her  nervousness;  and  I  followed 
her  between  the  marble  Emperors  of  the  hall,  and  up  the 
wide  stairs  with  terra-cotta  nymphs  poised  among  flowers 
at  each  landing. 

In  the  dimmest  corner  of  her  boudoir,  amid  a  profusion 
of  delicate  and  distinguished  objects,  hung  one  of  the  fa 
miliar  oval  canvases,  in  the  inevitable  garlanded  frame. 
The  mere  outline  of  the  frame  called  up  all  Gisburn's  past! 

Mrs.  Gisburn  drew  back  the  window-curtains,  moved 
aside  a  jardiniere  full  of  pink  azaleas,  pushed  an  arm 
chair  away,  and  said:  "If  you  stand  here  you  can  just 
manage  to  see  it.  I  had  it  over  the  mantelpiece,  but  he 
wouldn't  let  it  stay." 

Yes — I  could  just  manage  to  see  it — the  first  portrait 
of  Jack's  I  had  ever  had  to  strain  my  eyes  over!  Usually 
they  had  the  place  of  honour — say  the  central  panel  in  a 
pale  yellow  or  rose  Dubarry  drawing-room,  or  a  monu 
mental  easel  placed  so  that  it  took  the  light  through  cur 
tains  of  old  Venetian  point.  The  more  modest  place  became 
the  picture  better;  yet,  as  my  eyes  grew  accustomed  to  the 
half-light,  all  the  characteristic  qualities  came  out — all  the 
hesitations  disguised  as  audacities,  the  tricks  of  prestidigi 
tation  by  which,  with  such  consummate  skill,  he  managed 
to  divert  attention  from  the  real  business  of  the  picture 
to  some  pretty  irrelevance  of  detail.  Mrs.  Gisburn,  pre 
senting  a  neutral  surface  to  work  on — forming,  as  it  were, 
[182] 


THE  VERDICT 

so  inevitably  the  background  of  her  own  picture — had 
lent  herself  in  an  unusual  degree  to  the  display  of  this  false 
virtuosity.  The  picture  was  one  of  Jack's  "strongest,"  as 
his  admirers  would  have  put  it — it  represented,  on  his 
part,  a  swelling  of  muscles,  a  congesting  of  veins,  a  balan 
cing,  straddling  and  straining,  that  reminded  one  of  the 
circus-clown's  ironic  efforts  to  lift  a  feather.  It  met,  in 
short,  at  every  point  the  demand  of  lovely  woman  to  be 
painted  "strongly"  because  she  was  tired  of  being  painted 
"sweetly" — and  yet  not  to  lose  an  atom  of  the  sweetness. 

"It's  the  last  he  painted,  you  know,"  Mrs.  Gisburn  said 
with  pardonable  pride.  "The  last  but  one,"  she  corrected 
herself — "but  the  other  doesn't  count,  because  he  de 
stroyed  it." 

"Destroyed  it?"  I  was  about  to  follow  up  this  clue 
when  I  heard  a  footstep  and  saw  Jack  himself  on  the 
threshold. 

As  he  stood  there,  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of  his  velve 
teen  coat,  the  thin  brown  waves  of  hair  pushed  back  from 
his  white  forehead,  his  lean  sunburnt  cheeks  furrowed  by 
a  smile  that  lifted  the  tips  of  a  self-confident  moustache, 
I  felt  to  what  a  degree  he  had  the  same  quality  as  his  pict 
ures — the  quality  of  looking  cleverer  than  he  was. 

His  wife  glanced  at  him  deprecatingly,  but  his  eyes 
travelled  past  her  to  the  portrait. 

"Mr.  Rickham  wanted  to  see  it,"  she  began,  as  if  ex 
cusing  herself.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  still  smiling. 
[183] 


THE  VERDICT 

"Oh,  Rickham  found  me  out  long  ago,"  he  said  lightly; 
then,  passing  his  arm  through  mine:  "Come  and  see  the 
rest  of  the  house." 

He  showed  it  to  me  with  a  kind  of  naive  suburban  pride : 
the  bath-rooms,  the  speaking-tubes,  the  dress-closets,  the 
trouser-presses — all  the  complex  simplifications  of  the 
millionaire's  domestic  economy.  And  whenever  my 
wonder  paid  the  expected  tribute  he  said,  throwing  out 
his  chest  a  little:  "Yes,  I  really  don't  see  how  people 
manage  to  live  without  that." 

Well — it  was  just  the  end  one  might  have  foreseen  for 
him.  Only  he  was,  through  it  all  and  in  spite  of  it  all — as 
he  had  been  through,  and  in  spite  of,  his  pictures — so 
handsome,  so  charming,  so  disarming,  that  one  longed 
to  cry  out:  "Be  dissatisfied  with  your  leisure!"  as  once 
one  had  longed  to  say:  "Be  dissatisfied  with  your 
work!" 

But,  with  the  cry  on  my  lips,  my  diagnosis  suffered  an 
unexpected  check. 

"This  is  my  own  lair,"  he  said,  leading  me  into  a  dark 
plain  room  at  the  end  of  the  florid  vista.  It  was  square 
and  brown  and  leathery:  no  "effects,"  no  bric-a-brac, 
none  of  the  air  of  posing  for  reproduction  in  a  picture 
weekly — above  all,  no  least  sign  of  ever  having  been  used 
as  a  studio. 

The  fact  brought  home  to  me  the  absolute  finality  of 
Jack's  break  with  his  old  life. 

[1841 


THE   VERDICT 

"Don't  you  ever  dabble  with  paint  any  more  ?"  I  asked, 
still  looking  about  for  a  trace  of  such  activity. 

"Never,"  he  said  briefly. 

"Or  water-colour — or  etching?" 

His  confident  eyes  grew  vague,  and  his  cheeks  changed 
colour  a  little  under  their  handsome  sunburn. 

"Never  think  of  it,  my  dear  fellow — any  more  than  if 
I'd  never  touched  a  brush." 

And  his  tone  told  me  in  a  flash  that  he  never  thought  of 
anything  else. 

I  moved  away,  instinctively  embarrassed  by  my  unex 
pected  discovery;  and  as  I  turned,  my  eye  fell  on  a  small 
picture  above  the  mantelpiece — the  only  object  breaking 
the  plain  oak  panelling  of  the  room. 

"Oh,  by  Jove!"  I  said. 

It  was  a  sketch  of  a  donkey — an  old  tired  donkey 
standing  in  the  rain  under  a  wall. 

"By  Jove— a  Stroud!"  I  cried. 

He  was  silent;  but  I  felt  him  close  behind  me,  breath 
ing  a  little  quickly. 

"What  a  wonder!  Made  with  a  dozen  lines — but  on  ever 
lasting  foundations.  You  lucky  chap,  where  did  you  get  it  ?  " 

He  answered  slowly:  "Mrs.  Stroud  gave  it  to  me." 

"Ah — I  didn't  know  you  even  knew  the  Strouds.  He 
was  such  a  hermit." 

"I  didn't — till  after She  sent  for  me  to  paint  him 

when  he  was  dead." 

[185] 


THE  VERDICT 

"When  he  was  dead?  You?" 

I  must  have  let  a  little  too  much  amazement  escape 
through  my  surprise,  for  he  answered  with  a  deprecating 
laugh:  "Yes — she's  an  awful  simpleton,  you  know,  Mrs. 
Stroud.  Her  only  idea  was  to  have  him  done  by  a  fashion 
able  painter — ah,  poor  Stroud!  She  thought  it  the  surest 
way  of  proclaiming  his  greatness — of  forcing  it  on  a  pur 
blind  public.  And  at  the  moment  I  was  the  fashionable 
painter." 

"Ah,  poor  Stroud — as  you  say.  Was  that  his  history?" 

"That  was  his  history.  She  believed  in  him,  gloried 
in  him — or  thought  she  did.  But  she  couldn't  bear  not  to 
have  all  the  drawing-rooms  with  her.  She  couldn't  bear 
the  fact  that,  on  varnishing  days,  one  could  always  get 
near  enough  to  see  his  pictures.  Poor  woman!  She's  just 
a  fragment  groping  for  other  fragments.  Stroud  is  the  only 
whole  I  ever  knew." 

"You  , ever  knew?  But  you  just  said — " 

Gisburn  had  a  curious  smile  in  his  eyes. 

"Oh,  I  knew  him,  and  he  knew  me — only  it  happened 
after  he  was  dead." 

I  dropped  my  voice  instinctively.  "When  she  sent  for 
you?" 

"Yes — quite  insensible  to  the  irony.  She  wanted  him 
vindicated — and  by  me!" 

He  laughed  again,  and  threw  back  his  head  to  look  up 
at  the  sketch  of  the  donkey.  "There  were  days  when  I 
[186] 


THE   VERDICT 

couldn't  look  at  that  thing — couldn't  face  it.  But  I  forced 
myself  to  put  it  here;  and  now  it's  cured  me — cured  me. 
That's  the  reason  why  I  don't  dabble  any  more,  my  dear 
Rickham;  or  rather  Stroud  himself  is  the  reason." 

For  the  first  time  my  idle  curiosity  about  my  companion 
turned  into  a  serious  desire  to  understand  him  better. 

"I  wish  you'd  tell  me  how  it  happened,"  I  said. 

He  stood  looking  up  at  the  sketch,  and  twirling  between 
his  fingers  a  cigarette  he  had  forgotten  to  light.  Suddenly 
he  turned  toward  me. 

"I'd  rather  like  to  tell  you — because  I've  always  sus 
pected  you  of  loathing  my  work." 

I  made  a  deprecating  gesture,  which  he  negatived  with 
a  good-humoured  shrug. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  care  a  straw  when  I  believed  in  myself 
— and  now  it's  an  added  tie  between  us!" 

He  laughed  slightly,  without  bitterness,  and  pushed 
one  of  the  deep  arm-chairs  forward.  "There:  make  your 
self  comfortable — and  here  are  the  cigars  you  like." 

He  placed  them  at  my  elbow  and  continued  to  wander 
up  and  down  the  room,  stopping  now  and  then  beneath 
the  picture. 

"How  it  happened?  I  can  tell  you  in  five  minutes — 
and  it  didn't  take  much  longer  to  happen.  ...  I  can  re 
member  now  how  surprised  and  pleased  I  was  when  I  got 
Mrs.  Stroud's  note.  Of  course,  deep  down,  I  had  always 
felt  there  was  no  one  like  him — only  I  had  gone  with  the 
[187] 


THE    VERDICT 

stream,  echoed  the  usual  platitudes  about  him,  tffl  I  half 
got  to  think  he  was  a  failure,  one  of  the  kind  that  are  left 
behind.  By  Jove,  and  he  was  left  behind — because  he  had 
come  to  star!  The  rest  of  us  had  to  let  ourselves  be  swept 
along  or  go  under,  but  he  was  high  above  the  current — on 
everlasting  foundations,  as  you  saj. 

"Well,  I  went  off  to  the  house  in  my  most  egregious 
mood — rather  moved,  Lord  forgive  me,  at  the  pathos  of 
poor  Strond's  career  of  failure  being  crowned  by  the  glory 
of  my  painting  him!  Of  course  I  meant  to  do  the  picture 
for  nothing — I  told  Mrs.  Stroud  so  when  she  began  to 
•liiffi""*  something  about  her  poverty.  I  remember  get 
ting  off  a  prodigious  phrase  about  the  honour  being  mm* 
— oh,  I  was  princely,  my  dear  Rickham!  I  was  posing 
to  myself  like  one  of  my  own  sitters. 

"Then  I  was  taken  up  and  left  alone  with  him.  I  had 
sent  aD  my  traps  in  advance,  and  I  had  only  to  set  up  the 
easel  and  get  to  work.  He  had  been  dead  but  twenty-four 
hours,  and  he  died  suddenly,  of  heart  disease,  so  that  there 
had  been  no  preliminary  work  of  destruction — his  face 
was  dear  and  untouched.  I  had  met  him  once  or  twice, 
years  before,  and  thought  him  insignificant  ami  dingy. 
Now  I  saw  that  he  was  superb. 

"I  was  glad  at  first,  with  a  merely  aesthetic  satisfaction: 

glad  to  have  my  hand  on  such  a  'subject'  Then  his  strange 

fife-likeness  began  to  affect  me  queerly— as  I  blocked  the 

head  in  I  felt  as  if  he  were  watching  me  do  it  The  seasa- 

[188] 


THE   VERDICT 

tion  was  followed  by  the  thought :  if  he  were  watching  me, 
what  would  he  say  to  my  way  of  working  ?  My  strokes  be 
gan  to  go  a  little  wild — I  felt  nervous  and  uncertain. 

"Once,  when  I  looked  up,  I  seemed  to  see  a  smile  be 
hind  his  close  grayish  beard — as  if  he  had  the  secret,  and 
were  amusing  himself  by  holding  it  back  from  me.  That 
exasperated  me  still  more.  The  secret?  Why,  I  had  a 
secret  worth  twenty  of  his!  I  dashed  at  the  canvas  furiously, 
and  tried  some  of  my  bravura  tricks!  But  they  failed  me, 
they  crumbled.  I  saw  he  wasn't  watching  the  showy  bits — 
I  couldn't  distract  his  attention;  he  just  kept  his  eyes 
on  the  hard  passages  between.  Those  were  the  ones  I 
had  always  shirked,  or  covered  up  with  some  lying  paint. 
And  how  he  saw  through  my  lies! 

"I  looked  up  again,  and  caught  sight  of  that  sketch  of 
the  donkey  hanging  on  the  wall  near  his  bed.  His  wife  told 
me  afterward  it  was  the  last  thing  he  had  done — just  a 
note  taken  with  a  shaking  hand,  when  he  was  down  hi 
Devonshire  recovering  from  a  previous  heart  attack.  Just 
a  note!  But  it  tells  his  whole  history.  There  are  years  of 
patient  scornful  persistence  in  every  line.  A  man  who  had 
swum  with  the  current  could  never  have  learned  that 
mighty  up-stream  stroke. . . . 

"I  turned  back  to  my  work,  and  went  on  groping  and 

muddling;  then  I  looked  at  the  donkey  again.  I  saw  that 

when  Stroud  laid  in  the  first  stroke  he  knew  just  what  the 

end  would  be.  He  had  possessed  his  subject,  absorbed  it, 

[189] 


THE   VERDICT 

recreated  it.  When  had  I  done  that  with  any  of  my  things  ? 
They  hadn't  been  born  of  me  —  I  had  just  adopted  them.  .  .  . 

"Hang  it,  Rickham,  with  that  face  watching  me  I 
couldn't  do  another  stroke.  The  plain  truth  was,  I  didn't 
know  where  to  put  it  —  I  had  never  known.  Only,  with  my 
sitters  and  my  public,  a  showy  splash  of  colour  covered  up 
the  fact  —  I  just  threw  paint  into  their  eyes.  .  .  .  Well,  paint 
was  the  one  medium  those  dead  eyes  could  see  through  — 
see  straight  to  the  tottering  foundations  underneath. 
Don't  you  know  how,  in  talking  a  foreign  language,  even 
fluently,  one  says  half  the  time,  not  what  one  wants  to,  but 
what  one  can?  Well  —  that  was  the  way  I  painted;  and  as 
he  lay  there  and  watched  me  the  thing  they  called  my 
'technique'  collapsed  like  a  house  of  cards.  He  didn't 
sneer,  you  understand,  poor  Stroud  —  he  just  lay  there 
quietly  watching,  and  on  his  lips,  through  the  gray  beard, 
I  seemed  to  hear  the  question:  'Are  you  sure  you  know 
where  you're  coming  out?' 

"If  I  could  have  painted  that  face,  with  that  question 
on  it,  I  should  have  done  a  great  thing.  The  next  greatest 
thing  was  to  see  that  I  couldn't  —  and  that  grace  was  given 
me.  But,  oh,  at  that  minute,  Rickham,  was  there  anything 
on  earth  I  wouldn't  have  given  to  have  Stroud  alive  be 
fore  me,  and  to  hear  him  say:  'It's  not  too  late  —  I'll  show 
you  how'? 

"It  was  too  late  —  it  would  have  been,  even  if  he'd  been 
alive.  I  packed  up  my  traps  and  went  down  and  told  Mrs. 
[190] 


- 


THE  VERDICT 

Stroud.  Of  course  I  didn't  tell  her  that  —  it  would  have  been 
Greek  to  her.  I  simply  said  I  couldn't  paint  him,  that  I  was 
too  moved.  She  rather  liked  the  idea  —  she's  so  romantic! 
It  was  that  that  made  her  give  me  the  donkey.  But  she 
was  terribly  upset  at  not  getting  the  portrait  —  she  did  so 
want  him  '  done  '  by  some  one  showy  !  At  first  I  was  afraid 
she  wouldn't  let  me  off  —  and  at  my  wits'  end  I  suggested 
Grindle.  Yes,  it  was  I  who  started  Grindle:  I  told  Mrs. 
Stroud  he  was  the  'coming'  man,  and  she  told  somebody 
else,  and  so  it  got  to  be  true.  .  .  .  And  he  painted  Stroud 
without  wincing;  and  she  hung  the  picture  among  her  hus 
band's  things.  ..." 

He  flung  himself  down  in  the  arm-chair  near  mine, 
laid  back  his  head,  and  clasping  his  arms  beneath  it, 
looked  up  at  the  picture  above  the  chimney-piece. 

"I  like  to  fancy  that  Stroud  himself  would  have  given 
it  to  me,  if  he'd  been  able  to  say  what  he  thought  that  day." 

And,  in  answer  to  a  question  I  put  half-mechanically 
—  "Begin  again?"  he  flashed  out.  "When  the  one  thing 
that  brings  me  anywhere  near  him  is  that  I  knew  enough 
to  leave  off?" 

He  stood  up  and  laid  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  with  a 
laugh.  "Only  the  irony  of  it  is  that  I  am  still  painting  — 
since  Grindle's  doing  it  for  me!  The  Strouds  stand  alone, 
and  happen  once  —  but  there's  no  exterminating  our  kind 
of  art." 


[191] 


ftf 


THE  POT-BOILER 


THE  POT-BOILER 


THE  studio  faced  north,  looking  out  over  a  dismal 
reach  of  roofs  and  chimneys,  and  fire-escapes 
hung  with  heterogeneous  garments.  A  crust  of 
dirty  snow  covered  the  level  surfaces,  and  a  December 
sky  with  more  snow  in  it  lowered  above  them. 

The  room  was  bare  and  gaunt,  with  blotched  walls  and 
a  stained  uneven  floor.  On  a  divan  lay  a  pile  of  "proper 
ties" — limp  draperies,  an  Algerian  scarf,  a  moth-eaten 
fan  of  peacock  feathers.  The  janitor  had  forgotten  to  fill 
the  coal-scuttle  over-night,  and  the  cast-iron  stove  pro 
jected  its  cold  flanks  into  the  room  like  a  black  iceberg. 
Ned  Stanwell,  who  had  just  added  his  hat  and  great-coat  to 
the  heap  on  the  divan,  turned  from  the  empty  stove  with 
a  shiver. 

"By  Jove,  this  is  a  little  too  much  like  the  last  act  of 
Boheme,"  he  said,  slipping  into  his  coat  again  after  a  vain 
glance  at  the  coal-scuttle.  Much  solitude,  and  a  lively  habit 
of  mind,  had  bred  in  him  the  habit  of  audible  soliloquy, 
and  having  flung  a  shout  for  the  janitor  down  the  six  flights 
dividing  the  studio  from  the  basement,  he  turned  back, 
picking  up  the  thread  of  his  monologue.  "Exactly  like 


THE   POT-BOILER 

Boheme,  really — that  crack  in  the  wall  is  much  more  like 
a  stage-crack  than  a  real  one — just  the  sort  of  crack  Mun- 
gold  would  paint  if  he  were  doing  a  Humble  Interior." 

Mungold,  the  fashionable  portrait-painter  of  the  hour, 
was  the  favourite  object  of  the  younger  men's  irony. 

"It  only  needs  Kate  Arran  to  be  borne  in  dying,"  Stan- 
well  continued  with  a  laugh.  "Much  more  likely  to  be  poor 
little  Caspar,  though,"  he  concluded. 

His  neighbour  across  the  landing — the  little  sculptor 
Caspar  Arran,  humourously  called  "Gasper"  on  account 
of  his  bronchial  asthma — had  lately  been  joined  by  a 
sister,  Kate  Arran,  a  strapping  girl,  fresh  from  the  country, 
who  had  installed  herself  in  the  little  room  off  her  brother's 
studio,  keeping  house  for  him  with  a  chafing-dish  and  a 
coffee-machine,  to  the  mirth  and  envy  of  the  other  young 
men  in  the  building. 

Poor  little  Gasper  had  been  very  bad  all  the  autumn, 
and  it  was  surmised  that  his  sister's  presence,  which  he 
spoke  of  growlingly,  as  a  troublesome  necessity  imposed 
on  him  by  the  death  of  an  aunt,  was  really  a  sign  of 
his  failing  ability  to  take  care  of  himself.  Kate  Arran 
took  his  complaints  with  unfailing  good  humour,  darned 
his  socks,  brushed  his  clothes,  fed  him  with  steaming 
broths  and  foaming  milk-punches,  and  listened  with  rever 
ential  assent  to  his  interminable  disquisitions  on  art. 
Every  one  in  the  house  was  sorry  for  little  Gasper,  and 
the  other  fellows  liked  him  all  the  more  because  it  was 
[196] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

so  impossible  to  like  his  sculpture;  but  his  talk  was  a  bore, 
and  when  his  colleagues  ran  in  to  see  him  they  were  apt 
to  keep  a  hand  on  the  door-knob  and  to  plead  a  pressing 
engagement.  At  least  they  had  been  till  Kate  came;  but 
now  they  began  to  show  a  disposition  to  enter  and  sit 
down.  Caspar,  who  was  no  fool,  perceived  the  change,  and 
perhaps  detected  its  cause;  at  any  rate  he  showed  no 
special  gratification  at  the  increased  cordiality  of  his  friends, 
and  Kate,  who  followed  him  in  everything,  took  this  as  a 
sign  that  guests  were  to  be  discouraged. 

There  was  one  exception,  however:  Ned  Stan  well,  who 
was  deplorably  good-natured,  had  always  lent  a  patient 
ear  to  Caspar,  and  he  now  reaped  his  reward  by  being 
taken  into  Kate's  favour.  Before  she  had  been  a  month 
in  the  building  they  were  on  confidential  terms  as  to 
Caspar's  health,  and  lately  Stanwell  had  penetrated  farther, 
even  to  the  inmost  recesses  of  her  anxiety  about  her 
brother's  career.  Caspar  had  recently  had  a  bad  blow  in 
the  refusal  of  his  magnum  opus — a  vast  allegorical  group 
— by  the  Commissioners  of  the  Minneapolis  Exhibition. 
He  took  the  rejection  with  Promethean  irony,  proclaimed 
it  as  the  clinching  proof  of  his  genius,  and  abounded  in 
reasons  why,  even  in  an  age  of  such  crass  artistic  ignor 
ance,  a  refusal  so  egregious  must  react  to  the  advantage 
of  its  object.  But  his  sister's  indignation,  if  as  glowing,  was 
a  shade  less  hopeful.  Of  course  Caspar  was  going  to  suc 
ceed — she  knew  it  was  only  a  question  of  time — but  she 
[197] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

paled  at  the  word  and  turned  imploring  eyes  on  Stanwell. 
Was  there  time  enough  ?  It  was  the  one  element  in  the 
combination  that  she  could  not  count  on;  and  Stanwell, 
reddening  under  her  look,  and  cursing  his  own  glaring 
robustness,  would  affirm  that  of  course,  of  course,  of 
course,  by  everything  that  was  holy  there  was  time  enough 
— with  the  mental  reservation  that  there  wouldn't  be, 
even  if  poor  Caspar  lived  to  be  a  hundred. 

"Vos  dat  you  yelling  for  the  shanitor,  Mr.  Sdanwell?" 
inquired  an  affable  voice  through  the  doorway;  and  Stan- 
well,  turning  with  a  laugh,  confronted  the  squat  figure  of  a 
middle-aged  man  in  an  expensive  fur  coat,  who  looked  as 
if  his  face  secreted  the  oil  which  he  used  on  his  hair. 
•  "Hullo,  Shepson — I  should  say  I  was  yelling.  Did  you 
ever  feel  such  cold?  That  fool  has  forgotten  to  light  the 
stove.  Come  in,  but  for  heaven's  sake  don't  take  off  your 
coat." 

Mr.  Shepson  glanced  about  the  studio  with  a  look 
which  seemed  to  say  that,  where  so  much  else  was  lack 
ing,  the  absence  of  a  fire  hardly  added  to  the  general 
sense  of  destitution. 

"Veil,  you  ain't  as  veil  fixed  as  Mr.  Mungold — ever 
been  to  his  studio,  Mr.  Sdanwell?  De  most  exquisite 
blush  hangings,  and  a  gas-fire,  shoost  as  natural — " 

"Oh,   hang  it,   Shepson,   do  you   call  that  a  studio? 
It's  like  a  manicure's  parlour — or  a  beauty-doctor's.  By 
George,"  broke  off  Stanwell,  "and  that's  just  what  he  is!" 
[198] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

"A  peauty-doctor?" 

"Yes — oh,  well,  you  wouldn't  see,"  murmured  Stanwell, 
mentally  storing  his  epigram  for  more  appreciative  ears. 
"But  you  didn't  come  just  to  make  me  envious  of  Mun- 
gold's  studio,  did  you?"  And  he  pushed  forward  a  chair 
for  his  visitor. 

The  latter,  however,  declined  it  with  a  friendly  motion. 
"Of  gourse  not,  of  gourse  not — but  Mr.  Mungold  is  a 
sensible  man.  He  makes  a  lot  of  money,  you  know." 

"Is  that  what  you  came  to  tell  me  ?"  said  Stanwell,  still 
humourously. 

"My  gootness,  no — I  was  downstairs  looking  at  Hoi- 
brook's  sdained  class,  and  I  shoost  thought  I'd  sdep  up 
a  minute  and  take  a  beep  at  your  vork." 

"Much  obliged,  I'm  sure — especially  as  I  assume  that 
you  don't  want  any  of  it."  Try  as  he  would,  Stanwell 
could  not  keep  a  note  of  eagerness  from  his  voice.  Mr. 
Shepson  caught  the  note,  and  eyed  him  shrewdly  through 
gold-rimmed  glasses. 

"Veil,  veil,  veil — I'm  not  prepared  to  commit  myself. 
Shoost  let  me  take  a  look  round,  vill  you  ?" 

"With  the  greatest  pleasure — and  I'll  give  another 
shout  for  the  coal." 

Stanwell  went  out  on  the  landing,  and  Mr.  Shepson,  left 

to  himself,  began  a  meditative  progress  about  the  room. 

On  an  easel  facing  the  improvised  dais  stood  a  canvas  on 

which  a  young  woman's  head  had  been  blocked  in.  It  was 

[199] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

just  in  that  state  of  semi-evocation  when  a  picture  seems 
to  detach  itself  from  the  grossness  of  its  medium  and  live 
a  wondrous  moment  in  the  actual;  and  the  quality  of  the 
head — a  vigorous  dusky  youthfulness,  a  kind  of  virgin 
majesty — lent  itself  to  this  illusion  of  life.  Stanwell,  who 
had  re-entered  the  studio,  could  not  help  drawing  a  sharp 
breath  as  he  saw  the  picture-dealer  pausing  with  tilted 
head  before  this  portrait:  it  seemed,  at  one  moment,  so 
impossible  that  he  should  not  be  struck  with  it,  at  the  next 
so  incredible  that  he  should  be. 

Shepson  cocked  his  parrot-eye  at  the  canvas  with  a  de 
sultory  "Vat's  dat?"  which  sent  a  twinge  through  the 
young  man. 

"That?  Oh — a  sketch  of  a  young  lady,"  stammered 
Stanwell,  flushing  at  the  imbecility  of  his  reply.  "It's 
Miss  Arran,  you  know,"  he  added,  "the  sister  of  my 
neighbour  here,  the  sculptor." 

"Sgulpture?  There's  no  market  for  modern  sgulpture 
except  dombstones,"  said  Shepson  disparagingly,  passing 
on  as  if  he  included  the  sister's  portrait  in  his  condemna 
tion  of  her  brother's  trade. 

Stanwell  smiled,  but  more  at  himself  than  Shepson.  How 
could  he  have  supposed  that  the  gross  fool  would  see 
anything  in  his  sketch  of  Kate  Arran?  He  stood  aside, 
straining  after  detachment,  while  the  dealer  continued  his 
round  of  exploration,  waddling  up  to  the  canvases  on 
the  walls,  prodding  with  his  stick  at  those  stacked  in  corn- 
f  200  ] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

ers,  prying  and  peering  sideways  like  a  great  bird  rum 
maging  for  seed.  He  seemed  to  find  little  nutriment  in 
the  course  of  his  search,  for  the  sounds  he  emitted  ex 
pressed  a  weary  distaste  for  misdirected  effort,  and  he 
completed  his  round  without  having  thought  it  worth 
while  to  draw  a  single  canvas  from  its  obscurity. 

As  his  visits  always  had  the  same  result,  Stanwell  was 
reduced  to  wondering  why  he  had  come  again;  but  Shep- 
son  was  not  the  man  to  indulge  in  vague  roamings  through 
the  field  of  art,  and  it  was  safe  to  conclude  that  his  purpose 
would  in  due  course  reveal  itself.  His  tour  brought  him 
at  length  face  to  face  with  the  painter,  where  he  paused, 
clasping  his  plump  gloved  hands  behind  him,  and  shak 
ing  an  admonitory  head. 

"Gleffer — very  gleffer,  of  course — I  suppose  you'll 
let  me  know  when  you  want  to  sell  anything?" 

"Let  you  know?"  gasped  Stanwell,  to  whom  the  room 
grew  so  suddenly  hot  that  he  thought  for  a  moment  the 
ianitor  must  have  made  up  the  fire. 

Shepson  gave  a  dry  laugh.  "Veil,  it  doesn't  sdrike  me 
that  you  want  to  now — doing  this  kind  of  thing,  you 
know!"  And  he  swept  a  disparaging  hand  about  the 
studio. 

"Ah,"  said  Stanwell,  who  could  not  keep  a  note  of 
flatness  out  of  his  laugh. 

"See  here,  Mr.  Sdanwell,  vot  you  do  it  for?  If  you 
do  it  for  yourself  and  the  other  fellows,  veil  and  good — • 
[201] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

only  don't  ask  me  round.  I  sell  pictures,  I  don't  theorize 
about  them.  Ven  you  vant  to  sell,  gome  to  me  with  what 
my  gustomers  vant.  You  can  do  it — you're  smart  enough. 
You  can  do  most  anything.  Vere's  dat  bortrait  of  Gladys 
Glyde  dat  you  showed  at  the  Fake  Club  last  autumn? 
Dat  little  thing  in  de  Romney  style  ?  Dat  vas  a  little  shem, 
I  |  now,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Shepson,  whose  pronunciation  grew 

increasingly  Semitic  in  moments  of  excitement. 
Jr  Stanwell  stared.  Called  on  a  few  months  previously  to 
contribute  to  an  exhibition  of  skits  on  well-known  artists, 
he  had  used  the  photograph  of  a  favourite  music-hall 
"star"  as  the  basis  of  a  picture  in  the  pseudo- historical 
style  affected  by  the  fashionable  portrait-painters  of  the  day. 

"That  thing?"  he  said  contemptuously.  "How  on 
earth  did  you  happen  to  see  it?" 

"I  see  everything,"  returned  the  dealer  with  an  oracular 
smile.  "If  you've  got  it  here  let  me  look  at  it,  please." 

It  cost  Stanwell  a  few  minutes'  search  to  unearth  his 
skit — a  clever  blending  of  dash  and  sentimentality,  in 
just  the  right  proportion  to  create  the  impression  of  a 
powerful  brush  subdued  to  mildness  by  the  charms  of 
the  sitter.  Stanwell  had  thrown  it  off  in  a  burst  of  imitative 
frenzy,  beginning  for  the  mere  joy  of  the  satire,  but  gradu 
ally  fascinated  by  the  problem  of  producing  the  requisite 
mingling  of  attributes.  He  was  surprised  now  to  see  how 
well  he  had  mixed  the  brew,  and  Shepson 's  face  reflected 
his  approval. 


[202] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

"By  George!  Dat's  something  like,"  the  dealer  ejacu 
lated. 

"Like  what?  Like  Mungold?" 

"Like  business!  Like  a  big  order  for  a  bortrait,  Mr. 
Sdanwell — dat's  what  it's  like!"  cried  Shepson,  swing 
ing  round  on  him. 

Stan  well's  stare  widened.  "An  order  for  me?" 

"  Vy  not  ?  Accidents  vill  happen,"  said  Shepson  jocosely. 
"De  fact  is,  Mrs.  Archer  Millington  wants  to  be  bainted 
— you  know  her  sdyle?  Well,  she  prides  herself  on  her 
likeness  to  little  Gladys.  And  so  ven  she  saw  dat  bicture 
of  yours  at  de  Fake  Show  she  made  a  note  of  your  name, 
and  de  udder  day  she  sent  for  me  and  she  says:  'Mr. 
Shepson,  I'm  tired  of  Mungold — all  my  friends  are  done 
by  Mungold.  I  vant  to  break  away  and  be  orishinal — I 
vant  to  be  done  by  the  bainter  that  did  Gladys  Glyde.'" 

Shepson  waited  to  observe  the  result  of  this  overwhelm 
ing  announcement,  and  Stanwell,  after  a  momentary  halt 
of  surprise,  brought  out  laughingly:  "But  this  is  a  Mun 
gold.  Is  that  what  she  calls  being  original?" 

"Shoost  exactly,"  said  Shepson  with  unexpected  acute- 
ness.  "That's  vat  dey  all  want — something  different 
from  vat  all  deir  friends  have  got,  but  shoost  like  it  all 
de  same.  Dat's  de  public  all  over!  Mrs.  Millington  don't 
want  a  Mungold,  because  everybody's  got  a  Mungold, 
but  she  wants  a  picture  that's  in  the  same  sdyle,  because 
dat's  de  sdyle,  and  she's  afraid  of  any  oder!" 
[203] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

Stanwell  was  listening  with  real  enjoyment.  "Ah,  you 
know  your  public,"  he  murmured. 

"Veil,  you  do  too,  or  you  couldn't  have  painted  dat," 
the  dealer  retorted.  "And  I  don't  say  dey're  wrong — 
mind  dat.  I  like  a  bretty  picture  myself.  And  I  understand 
the  way  dey  feel.  Dey're  villing  to  let  Sargent  take  liber 
ties  vid  them,  because  it's  like  being  punched  in  de  ribs 
by  a  King;  but  if  anybody  else  baints  them,  they  vant  to 
look  as  sweet  as  an  obituary."  He  turned  earnestly  to 
Stanwell.  "The  thing  is  to  attract  their  notice.  Vonce  you 
got  it  they  von't  gif  you  dime  to  sleep.  And  dat's  why  I'm 
here  to-day — you've  attracted  Mrs.  Millington's  notice, 
and  vonce  you're  hung  in  dat  new  ball-room — dat's  vere 
she  vants  you,  in  a  big  gold  panel — vonce  you're  dere, 
vy,  you'll  be  like  the  Pianola — no  home  gompleat  without 
you.  And  I  ain't  going  to  charge  you  any  commission  on 
the  first  job!" 

He  stood  before  the  painter,  exuding  a  mixture  of  defer 
ence  and  patronage  in  which  either  element  might  prevail 
as  events  developed;  but  Stanwell  could  see  in  the  inci 
dent  only  the  stuff  for  a  good  story. 

"My  dear  Shepson,"  he  said,  "what  are  you  talking 
about?  This  is  no  picture  of  mine.  Why  don't  you  ask 
me  to  do  you  a  Corot?  I  hear  there's  a  great  demand 
for  them  still  in  the  West.  Or  an  Arthur  Schracker 
— I  can  do  Schracker  as  well  as  Mungold,"  he  added, 
turning  around  a  small  canvas  at  which  a  paint-pot 
[204] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

seemed  to  have  been  hurled  with  violence  from  a  con 
siderable  distance. 

Shepson  ignored  the  allusion  to  Corot,  but  screwed  his 
eyes  at  the  picture.  "Ah,  Schracker — veil,  the  Schracker 
sdyle  would  take  first  rate  if  you  were  a  foreigner — 
but  for  goodness  sake  don't  try  it  on  Mrs.  Milling- 
ton!" 

Stanwell  pushed  the  two  skits  aside.  "Oh,  you  can  trust 
me,"  he  cried  humorously.  "The  pearls  and  the  eyes  very 
large — the  hands  and  feet  very  small.  Isn't  that  about  the 
size  of  it?" 

"Dat's  it — dat's  it.  And  the  cheque  as  big  as  you  vant 
to  make  it!  Mrs.  Millington  vants  the  picture  finished  in 
time  for  her  first  barty  in  the  new  ball-room,  and  if  you 
rush  the  job  she  won't  sdickle  at  an  extra  thousand.  Vill 
you  come  along  with  me  now  and  arrange  for  your  first 
zitting?" 

He  stood  before  the  young  man,  urgent,  paternal,  and 
so  imbued  with  the  importance  of  his  mission  that  his 
face  stretched  to  a  ludicrous  length  of  dismay  when  Stan- 
well,  giving  him  a  good-humoured  push,  cried  gaily: 
"My  dear  fellow,  it  will  make  my  price  rise  still  higher 
when  the  lady  hears  I'm  too  busy  to  take  any  orders  at 
present — and  that  I'm  actually  obliged  to  turn  you  out  now 
because  I'm  expecting  a  sitter!" 

It  was  part  of  Shepson's  business  to  have  a  quick  ear 
for  the  note  of  finality,  and  he  offered  no  resistance  to 
[205] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

Stanwell's  push;  but  on  the  threshold  he  paused  to  mur 
mur,  with  a  regretful  glance  at  the  denuded  studio:  "You 
could  haf  done  it,  Mr.  Sdanwell — you  could  haf  done  it!'* 


II 


17"" ATE  ARRAN  was  Stanwell's  sitter;  but  the  janitor 
-*•**  had  hardly  filled  the  stove  when  she  came  in  to  say 
she  could  not  sit.  Caspar  had  had  a  bad  night;  he  was  de 
pressed  and  feverish,  and  in  spite  of  his  protests  she  had 
resolved  to  fetch  the  doctor.  Care  sat  on  her  usually  tran 
quil  features,  and  Stanwell,  as  he  offered  to  go  for  the 
doctor,  wished  he  could  have  caught  in  his  picture  the  wide 
gloom  of  her  brow.  There  was  alwavs  a  kind  of  Biblical 
breadth  in  the  expression  of  her  emotions,  and  to-day  she 
suggested  a  text  from  Isaiah. 

"But  you're  not  busy?"  she  hesitated,  in  the  full  voice 
which  seemed  tuned  to  a  solemn  rhetoric. 

"I  meant  to  be — with  you.  But  since  that's  off  I'm 
quite  unemployed." 

She  smiled  interrogatively.  "I  thought  perhaps  you 
had  an  order.  I  met  Mr.  Shepson  rubbing  his  hands  on  the 
landing." 

"Was  he  rubbing  his  hands?  Well,  it  was  not  over  me. 
He  says  that  from  the  style  of  my  pictures  he  doesn't  sup 
pose  I  want  to  sell." 

She  looked  at  him  superbly.  "Well,  do  you?" 
[206] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

He  embraced  his  bleak  walls  in  a  circular  gesture. 
"Judge  for  yourself!" 

"Ah,  but  it's  splendidly  furnished!" 

"With  rejected  pictures,  you  mean?" 

"With  ideals!"  she  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  caught  from 
her  brother,  and  which  would  have  been  irritating  to 
Stanwell  if  it  had  not  been  moving. 

He  gave  a  slight  shrug  and  took  up  his  hat;  but  she  in 
terposed  to  say  that  if  it  didn't  make  any  difference  she 
would  prefer  to  have  him  go  and  sit  with  poor  Caspar, 
while  she  ran  for  the  doctor  and  did  some  household 
errands  by  the  way.  Stanwell  divined  in  her  request  the  need 
of  a  brief  respite  from  Caspar,  and  though  he  shivered  at 
the  thought  of  her  facing  the  cold  in  the  scant  jacket  which 
had  been  her  only  wear  since  he  had  known  her,  he  let  her 
go  without  protest,  and  betook  himself  to  Arran's  studio. 

He  found  the  little  sculptor  dressed  and  roaming  fret 
fully  about  the  melancholy  room  in  which  he  and  his  plastic 
off-spring  lodged.  In  one  corner,  where  Kate's  chair 
and  work-table  stood,  a  scrupulous  order  prevailed;  but 
the  rest  of  the  apartment  had  the  dreary  untidiness,  the 
damp  gray  look,  which  the  worker  in  clay  usually  creates 
about  him.  In  the  centre  of  this  desert  stood  the  shrouded 
image  of  Caspar's  disappointment:  the  colossal  rejected 
group  as  to  which  his  friends  could  seldom  remember  . 
whether  it  represented  Jove  hurling  a  Titan  from  Olympus 
or  Science  Subjugating  Religion.  Caspar  was  the  sworn 
[207] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

foe  of  religion,  which  he  appeared  to  regard  as  indirectly 
connected  with  his  inability  to  sell  his  statues. 

The  sculptor  was  too  ill  to  work,  and  StanwelTs  ap 
pearance  loosed  the  pent-up  springs  of  his  talk. 

"Hallo!  What  are  you  doing  here  ?  I  thought  Kate  had 
gone  over  to  sit  to  you.  She  wanted  a  little  fresh  air?  I 
should  say  enough  of  it  came  in  through  these  windows. 
How  like  a  woman,  when  she's  agreed  to  do  a  certain 
thing,  to  make  up  her  mind  at  once  that  she's  got  to  do 
another!  They  don't  call  it  caprice — it's  always  duty; 
that's  the  humour  of  it.  I'll  be  bound  Kate  alleged  a  press 
ing  engagement.  Sorry  she  should  waste  your  time  so,  my 
dear  fellow.  Here  am  I  with  plenty  of  it  to  burn — look  at 
my  hand  shake;  I  can't  do  a  thing!  Well,  luckily  nobody 
wants  me  to — posterity  may  suffer,  but  the  present  genera 
tion  isn't  worrying.  The  present  generation  wants  to  be 
carved  in  sugar-candy,  or  painted  in  maple  syrup.  It 
doesn't  want  to  be  told  the  truth  about  itself  or  about  any 
thing  in  the  universe.  The  prophets  have  always  lived  in 
a  garret,  my  dear  fellow — only  the  ravens  don't  always 
find  out  their  address!  Speaking  of  ravens,  though,  Kate 
told  me  she  saw  old  Shepson  coming  out  of  your  place — 
I  say,  old  man,  you're  not  meditating  an  apostasy  ?  You're 
not  doing  the  kind  of  thing  that  Shepson  would  look  at  ?  " 

Stan  well  laughed.  "He  looked  at  them — but  only  to 
confirm  his  reasons  for  rejecting  them." 

"Ha!  ha!  That's  right — he  wanted  to  refresh  his  mem- 
[208] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

ory  with  their  badness.  But  how  on  earth  did  he  happen 
to  have  any  doubts  on  the  subject  ?  I  should  as  soon  have 
thought  of  his  coming  in  here!" 

Stanwell  winced  at  the  comparison,  but  replied  in 
Caspar's  key:  "Oh,  he's  not  as  sure  of  any  of  us  as  he  is 
of  you!" 

The  sculptor  received  this  tribute  with  a  joyous  ex 
pletive.  "By  God,  no,  he's  sure  of  me,  as  you  say!  He  and 
his  tribe  know  that  I'll  starve  in  my  tracks  sooner  than 
make  a  concession — a  single  concession.  A  fellow  came 
after  me  once  to  do  an  angel  on  a  tombstone — an  angel 
leaning  against  a  broken  column,  and  looking  as  if  it 
was  waiting  for  the  elevator  and  wondering  why  in  hell 
it  didn't  come.  He  said  he  wanted  me  to  show  that  the 
deceased  was  pining  to  get  to  heaven.  As  she  was  his  wife 
I  didn't  dispute  the  proposition,  but  when  I  asked  him 
what  he  understood  by  heaven  he  grabbed  his  hat  and 
walked  out  of  the  studio.  He  didn't  wait  for  the  elevator." 

Stanwell  listened  with  a  practised  smile.  The  story  of 
the  man  who  had  come  to  order  the  angel  was  so  famil 
iar  to  Arran's  friends  that  its  only  interest  consisted 
in  waiting  to  see  what  variation  he  would  give  to  the 
retort  which  had  put  the  mourner  to  flight.  It  was 
generally  supposed  that  this  visit  represented  the  sculp 
tor's  nearest  approach  to  an  order,  and  one  of  his 
fellow-craftsmen  had  been  heard  to  remark  that  if  Caspar 
had  made  the  tombstone,  the  lady  under  it  would  have 
[209] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

tried  harder  than  ever  to  get  to  heaven.  To  Stanwell's 
present  mood,  however,  there  was  something  more  than 
usually  irritating  in  the  gratuitous  assumption  that  Arran 
had  only  to  descend  from  his  altitude  to  have  a  press  of 
purchasers  at  his  door. 

"Well — what  did  you  gain  by  kicking  your  widower 
out?"  he  objected.  "Why  can't  a  man  do  two  kinds  of 
work — one  to  please  himself  and  the  other  to  boil  the  pot  ?" 

Caspar  stopped  in  hisjjerky  walk — the  stride  of  a  tall 
man  attempted  with  short  legs  (it  sometimes  appeared  to 
Stan  well  to  symbolize  ms  artistic  endeavour). 

"Why  can't  a  manf— why  can't  he?  You  ask  me  that, 
Stanwell?"  he  blazeJout. 

"Yes;  and  what's  more,  I'll  answer  you:  it  isn't  every 
body  who  can  adapt  Ilk  art  as  he  wants  to!" 

Caspar  stood  beforffl^him,  gasping  with  incredulous 
scorn.  "Adapt  his  art?  &  he  wants  to?  Unhappy  wretch, 
what  lingo  are  you  talkjhg?  If  you  mean  that  it  isn't 
every  honest  man  who  can  be  a  renegade — " 

"That's  just  what  I  do  mean:  he  can't  unless  he's 
clever  enough  to  see  the  other  side." 

The  deep  groan  with  which  Caspar  met  this  casuistry 
was  cut  shortly  a  knock  at  the  studio  door,  which  there 
upon  ofJened  to  admit  a  small  dapperly-dressed  man 
with  a  siBy  moustache  and  mildly-bulging  eyes. 

"Ah,  Mungold,"  exclaimed  Stanwell,  to  cover  the 
gloomy  silence  with  which  Arran  received  the  new- 
[210] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

comer;  whereat  the  latter,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  does 
not  easily  believe  himself  unwelcome,  bestowed  a  sympa 
thetic  pressure  on  the  sculptor's  hand. 

"My  dear  chap,  I've  just  met  Miss  Arran,  and  she  told 
me  you  were  laid  up  with  a  bad  cold,  so  I  thought  I'd 
pop  in  and  cheer  you  up." 

He  looked  about  him  with  a  smile  evidently  intended 
as  the  first  act  in  his  beneficent  programme. 

Mr.  Mungold,  freshly  soaped  and  scented,  with  a  neat 
glaze  of  gentility  extending  from  his  varnished  boot-tips 
to  his  glossy  hat,  looked  like  the  "flattered"  portrait  of  a 
common  man — just  such  an  idealized  presentment  as  his 
own  brush  might  have  produced.  As  a  rule,  however,  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  portrayal  of  the  other  sex,  painting 
ladies  in  syrup,  as  Arran  said,  with  marsh-mallow  children 
against  their  knees.  He  was  as  quick  as  a  dressmaker  at 
catching  new  ideas,  and  the  style  of  his  pictures  changed 
as  rapidly  as  that  of  the  fashion-plates.  One  year  all  his 
sitters  were  done  on  oval  canvases,  with  gauzy  draperies 
and  a  back-ground  of  clouds;  the  next  they  were  seated 
under  an  immemorial  elm,  caressing  enormous  dogs 
obviously  constructed  out  of  door-mats.  Whatever  their 
occupation  they  always  looked  straight  out  of  the  canvas, 
giving  the  impression  that  their  eyes  were  fixed  on  an  in 
visible  camera.  This  gave  rise  to  the  rumour  that  Mungold 
"did"  his  portraits  from  photographs;  it  was  even  said 
that  he  had  invented  a  way  of  transferring  an  enlarged 
[211] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

photograph  to  the  canvas,  so  that  all  that  remained  was  to 
fill  in  the  colours.  If  he  heard  of  this  charge  he  took  it 
calmly,  but  probably  it  had  not  reached  the  high  spheres 
in  which  he  moved,  and  in  which  he  was  esteemed  for 
painting  pearls  better,  and  making  unsuggestive  children 
look  lovelier,  than  any  of  his  fellow-craftsmen.  Mr.  Mun- 
gold,  in  fact,  deemed  it  a  part  of  his  professional  duty  to 
study  his  sitters  in  their  home-life;  and  as  this  life  was 
chiefly  led  in  the  homes  of  others,  he  was  too  busy  dining 
out  and  going  to  the  opera  to  mingle  much  with  his  col 
leagues.  But  as  no  one  is  wholly  consistent,  Mr.  Mungold 
had  lately  belied  his  ambitions  by  falling  in  love  with 
Kate  Arran;  and  with  that  gentle  persistency  which  made 
him  so  wonderful  in  managing  obstreperous  infantile 
sitters,  he  had  contrived  to  establish  a  footing  in  her 
brother's  studio. 

Part  of  his  success  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  could  not 
easily  think  himself  the  object  of  a  rebuff.  If  it  seemed  to 
hit  him  he  regarded  it  as  deflected  from  its  aim,  and  brushed 
it  aside  with  a  discreet  gesture.  A  touch  of  comedy  was 
lent  to  the  situation  by  the  fact  that,  till  Kate  Arran's 
coming,  Mungold  had  always  served  as  her  brother's 
Awful  Example.  It  was  a  mark  of  Arran's  lack  of  humour 
that  he  persisted  in  regarding  the  little  man  as  a  conscious 
apostate,  instead  of  perceiving  that  he  painted  as  he  could, 
in  a  world  which  really  looked  to  him  like  a  vast  con 
fectioner's  window.  Stanwell  had  never  quite  divined 


THE   POT-BOILER 

how  Mungold  had  won  over  the  sister,  to  whom  her 
brother's  prejudices  were  a  religion;  but  he  suspected  the 
painter  of  having  united  a  deep  belief  in  Caspar's  genius 
with  the  occasional  offer  of  opportune  delicacies — the  /  /  t-f 
port- wine  or  game  which  Kate  had  no  other  means  of  pro 
curing  for  the  patient. 

Stanwell,  persuaded  that  Mungold  would  stick  to  his 
post  till  Miss  Arran's  return,  felt  himself  freed  from  his 
promise  to  the  latter  and  left  the  incongruous  pair  to  them 
selves.  There  had  been  a  time  when  it  amused  him  to  see 
Caspar  submerge  the  painter  in  a  torrent  of  denunciatory 
eloquence,  and  to  watch  poor  Mungold  sputtering  under 
its  rush,  yet  emitting  little  bland  phrases  of  assent,  like  a  •  " 
gentleman  drowning  correctly,  in  gloves  and  eye-glasses. 
But  Stanwell  was  beginning  to  find  less  food  for  gaiety  than 
for  envy  in  the  contemplation  of  his  colleague.  After  all, 
Mungold  held  his  ground,  he  did  not  go  under.  Spite  of  his 
manifest  absurdity  he  had  succeeded  in  propitiating  the 
sister,  in  making  himself  tolerated  by  the  brother;  and  the 
fact  that  his  success  was  due  to  the  ability  to  purchase 
port-wine  and  game  was  not  in  this  case  a  mitigating 
circumstance.  Stanwell  knew  that  the  Arrans  really  pre 
ferred  him  to  Mungold,  but  the  knowledge  only  sharpened 
his  envy  of  the  latter,  whose  friendship  could  command 
visible  tokens  of  expression,  while  poor  Stanwell's  re 
mained  gloomily  inarticulate.  As  he  returned  to  his  over- 
populated  studio  and  surveyed  anew  the  pictures  of  which 
[213] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

Shepson  had  not  offered  to  relieve  him,  he  found  himself 
wishing,  not  for  Mungold's  lack  of  scruples,  for  he  be 
lieved  him  to  be  the  most  scrupulous  of  men,  but  for  that 
happy  mean  of  talent  which  so  completely  satisfied  the 
artistic  requirements  of  the  inartistic.  Mungold  was  not  to 
1  be  despised  as  an  apostate — he  was  to  be  congratulated 
;as  a  man  whose  aptitudes  were  exactly  in  line  with  the 
j  taste  of  the  persons  he  liked  to  dine  with. 

At  this  point  in  his  meditations,  Stanwell's  eye  fell  on 
the  portrait  of  Miss  Gladys  Glyde.  It  was  really,  as 
Shepson  said,  as  good  as  a  Mungold;  yet  it  could  never 
be  made  to  serve  the  same  purpose,  because  it  was  the 
work  of  a  man  who  knew  it  was  bad  art.  That  at  least 
would  have  been  Caspar  Arran's  contention — poor  Cas 
par,  who  produced  as  bad  art  in  the  service  of  the  loftiest 
convictions!  The  distinction  began  to  look  like  mere 
casuistry  to  Stanwell.  He  had  never  been  very  proud  of 
his  own  adaptability.  It  had  seemed  to  him  to  indicate  the 
lack  of  an  individual  standpoint,  and  he  had  tried  to 
counteract  it  by  the  cultivation  of  an  aggressively  personal 
style.  But  the  cursed  knack  was  in  his  fingers — he  was 
always  at  the  mercy  of  some  other  man's  sensations,  and 
there  were  moments  when  he  blushed  to  remember  that 
his  grandfather  had  spent  a  laborious  life-time  in  Rome, 
copying  the  Old  Masters,  for  a  generation  which  lacked 
the  resource  of  the  camera.  Now,  however,  it  struck  him 
that  the  ancestral  versatility  might  be  a  useful  inheritance. 
[214] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

In  art,  after  all,  the  greatest  of  them  did  what  they  could; 
and  if  a  man  could  do  several  things  instead  of  one,  why 
should  he  not  profit  by  his  multiplicity  of  gifts  ?  If  one  had 
two  talents  why  not  serve  two  masters  ? 


Ill 


QTANWELL,  while  seeing  Caspar  through  the  attack 
^  which  had  been  the  cause  of  his  sister's  arrival,  had 
struck  up  a  friendship  with  the  young  doctor  who  climbed 
the  patient's  six  flights  with  unremitting  fidelity.  The  two, 
since  then,  had  continued  to  exchange  confidences  re 
garding  the  sculptor's  health,  and  Stanwell,  anxious  to 
waylay  the  doctor  after  his  visit,  left  the  studio  door  ajar, 
and  went  out  when  he  heard  a  sound  of  leave-taking 
across  the  landing.  But  it  appeared  that  the  doctor  had 
just  come,  and  that  it  was  Mungold  who  was  making  his 
adieux. 

The  latter  at  once  assumed  that  Stanwell  had  been  on 
the  alert  for  him,  and  met  the  supposed  advance  by  in 
viting  himself  into  the  studio. 

"May  I  come  and  take  a  look  around,  my  dear  fellow  ? 
I've  been  meaning  to  drop  in  for  an  age — "  Mungold 
always  spoke  with  a  girlish  emphasis  and  effusiveness — 
"but  I  have  been  so  busy  getting  up  Mrs.  Van  Orley's 
tableaux — English  eighteenth  century  portraits,  you  know 
— that  really,  what  with  that  and  my  sittings,  I've  hardly 
[215] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

had  time  to  think.  And  then  you  know  you  owe  me  about 
a  dozen  visits!  But  you're  a  savage — you  don't  pay  visits. 
You  stay  here  and  piocher — which  is  wiser,  as  the  results 
prove.  Ah,  you're  strong — immensely  strong!"  He  paused 
in  the  middle  of  the  studio,  glancing  about  a  little  ap 
prehensively,  as  though  he  thought  the  stored  energy  of 
the  pictures  might  result  in  an  explosion.  "Very  original — 
very  striking — ah,  Miss  Arran!  A  powerful  head;  but — 
excuse  the  suggestion — isn't  there  just  the  least  little  lack 
of  sweetness?  You  don't  think  she  has  the  sweet  type? 
Perhaps  not — but  could  she  be  so  lovely  if  she  were  not 
intensely  feminine?  Just  at  present,  though,  she's  not 
looking  her  best — she  is  horribly  tired.  I'm  afraid  there 
is  very  little  money  left — and  poor  dear  Caspar  is  so  im 
possible:  he  won't  hear  of  a  loan.  Otherwise  I  should  be 
most  happy — .  But  I  came  just  now  to  propose  a  piece  of 
work — in  fact  to  give  an  order.  Mrs.  Archer  Millington 
has  built  a  new  ball-room,  as  I  daresay  you  may  have  seen 
in  the  papers,  and  she's  been  kind  enough  to  ask  me  for 
some  hints — oh,  merely  as  a  friend:  I  don't  presume  to 
do  more  than  advise.  But  her  decorator  wants  to  do  some 
thing  with  Cupids — something  light  and  playful.  And  so 
I  ventured  to  say  that  I  knew  a  very  clever  sculptor — 
well,  I  do  believe  Caspar  has  talent — latent  talent,  you 
know — and  at  any  rate  a  job  of  that  sort  would  be  a  big  lift 
for  him.  At  least  I  thought  he  would  regard  it  so;  but  you 
should  have  heard  him  when  I  showed  him  the  decorator's 
[216] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

sketch.  He  asked  me  what  the  Cupids  were  to  be  done  in 
— lard  ?  And  if  I  thought  he  had  had  his  training  at  a  con 
fectioner's  ?  And  I  don't  know  what  more  besides — but  he 
worked  himself  up  to  such  a  degree  that  he  brought  on  a 
frightful  fit  of  coughing,  and  Miss  Arran,  I'm  afraid,  was 
rather  annoyed  with  me  when  she  came  in,  though  I'm 
sure  an  order  from  Mrs.  Archer  Millington  is  not  a  thing 
that  would  annoy  most  people!" 

Mr.  Mungold  paused,  breathless  with  the  rehearsal  of 
his  wrongs,  and  Stanwell  said  with  a  smile:  "You  know 
poor  Caspar's  terribly  stiff  on  the  purity  of  the  artist's  aim." 

"The  artist's  aim?"  Mr.  Mungold  stared.  "What  is 
the  artist's  aim  but  to  please — isn't  that  the  purpose  of  all 
true  art?  But  his  theories  are  so  extravagant.  I  really 
don't  know  what  I  shall  say  to  Mrs.  Millington — she's 
not  used  to  being  refused.  I  suppose  I'd  better  put  it  on 
the  ground  of  ill-health."  The  artist  glanced  at  his  hand 
some  repeater.  "Dear  me,  I  promised  to  be  at  Mrs.  Van 
Orley's  before  twelve.  We're  to  settle  about  the  curtain 
before  luncheon.  My  dear  fellow,  it's  been  a  privilege  to 
see  your  work.  By  the  way,  you  have  never  done  any 
modelling,  I  suppose  ?  You're  so  extraordinarily  versatile 
— I  didn't  know  whether  you  might  care  to  undertake  the 
Cupids  yourself." 

Stanwell  had  to  wait  a  long  time  for  the  doctor;  and 
when  the  latter  came  out  he  looked  grave.  Worse?  No, 
[217] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

he  couldn't  say  that  Caspar  was  worse — but  then  he 
wasn't  better.  There  was  nothing  mortal  the  matter,  but 
the  question  was  how  long  he  could  hold  out.  It  was  the 
kind  of  case  where  there  is  no  use  in  drugs — he  had  merely 
scribbled  a  prescription  to  quiet  Miss  Arran. 

"It's  the  cold,  I  suppose,"  Stan  well  groaned.  "He 
ought  to  be  shipped  off  to  Florida." 

The  doctor  made  a  negative  gesture.  "Florida  be 
hanged!  What  he  wants  is  to  sell  his  group.  That  would 
set  him  up  quicker  than  sitting  on  the  equator." 

"Sell  his  group?"  Stan  well  echoed.  "But  he's  so  in 
different  to  recognition — he  believes  in  himself  so  thor 
oughly.  I  thought  at  first  he  would  be  hard  hit  when  the 
Exhibition  Committee  refused  it,  but  he  seems  to  regard 
that  as  another  proof  of  its  superiority." 

His  visitor  turned  on  him  the  keen  eye  of  the  confessor. 
"Indifferent  to  recognition?  He's  eating  his  heart  out  for 
it.  Can't  you  see  that  all  that  talk  is  just  so  much  whistling 
to  keep  his  courage  up  ?  The  name  of  his  disease  is  failure 
— and  I  can't  write  the  prescription  that  will  cure  that. 
But  if  somebody  would  come  along  and  take  a  fancy  to 
those  two  naked  parties  who  are  breaking  each  other's 
heads  we'd  have  Mr.  Caspar  putting  on  a  pound  a 
day." 

The  truth  of  this  diagnosis  became  suddenly  vivid  to 
Stanwell.  How  dull  of  him  not  to  have  seen  before  that 
it  was  not  cold  or  privation  which  was  killing  Caspar — 
[218] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

not  anxiety  for  his  sister's  future,  nor  the  ache  of  watching 
her  daily  struggle — but  simply  the  cankering  thought  that 
he  might  die  before  he  had  made  himself  known!  It  was 
his  vanity  that  was  starving  to  death,  and  all  Mungold's 
hampers  could  not  appease  that  hunger.  Stanwell  was  not 
shocked  by  the  discovery — he  was  only  the  more  sorry  for 
the  little  man,  who  was,  after  all,  denied  that  solace 
of  self-sufficiency  which  his  talk  so  noisily  proclaimed. 
His  lot  seemed  hard  enough  when  Stanwell  had  pictured 
him  as  buoyed  up  by  the  scorn  of  public  opinion — it  be 
came  tragic  if  he  was  denied  that  support.  The  artist 
wondered  if  Kate  had  guessed  her  brother's  secret,  or 
if  she  were  still  the  dupe  of  his  stoicism.  Stanwell  was 
sure  that  the  sculptor  would  take  no  one  into  his  confidence, 
and  least  of  all  his  sister,  whose  faith  in  his  artistic  inde 
pendence  was  the  chief  prop  of  that  tottering  pose.  Kate's 
penetration  was  not  great,  and  Stanwell  recalled  the  in 
credulous  smile  with  which  she  had  heard  him  defend 
poor  Mungold's  "sincerity"  against  Caspar's  assaults; 
but  she  had  the  insight  of  the  heart,  and  where  her  brother's 
happiness  was  concerned  she  might  have  seen  deeper  than 
any  of  them.  It  was  this  last  consideration  which  took  the 
strongest  hold  on  Stanwell — he  felt  Caspar's  sufferings 
chiefly  through  the  thought  of  his  sister's  possible  disil 
lusionment. 


[219] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

IV 

T  T  7TTHIN  three  months  two  events  had  set  the  studio 
building  talking.  Stanwell  had  painted  a  full- 
length  portrait  of  Mrs.  Archer  Millington,  and  Caspar 
Arran  had  received  an  order  to  execute  his  group  in 
marble. 

The  name  of  the  sculptor's  patron  had  not  been  divulged. 
The  order  came  through  Shepson,  who  explained  that  an 
American  customer  living  abroad,  having  seen  a  photo 
graph  of  the  group  in  one  of  the  papers,  had  at  once 
cabled  home  to  secure  it.  He  intended  to  bestow  it  on  a 
public  building  in  America,  and  not  wishing  to  advertise 
his  munificence,  had  preferred  that  even  the  sculptor 
should  remain  ignorant  of  his  name.  The  group  bought 
by  an  enlightened  compatriot  for  the  adornment  of  a 
civic  building  in  his  native  land!  There  could  hardly  be 
a  more  complete  vindication  of  unappreciated  genius, 
and  Caspar  made  the  most  of  the  argument.  He  was  not 
exultant,  he  was  sublimely  magnanimous.  He  had  always 
said  that  he  could  afford  to  await  the  Verdict  of  Posterity, 
and  his  unknown  patron's  act  clearly  shadowed  forth 
that  impressive  decision.  Happily  it  also  found  expression 
in  a  cheque  which  it  would  have  taken  more  philosophy  to 
await.  The  group  was  paid  for  in  advance,  and  Kate's 
joy  in  her  brother's  recognition  was  deliciously  mingled 
with  the  thrill  of  ordering  him  some  new  clothes,  and  coax- 
[220] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

ing  him  out  to  dine  succulently  at  a  neighbouring  restaur 
ant.  Caspar  flourished  insufferably  on  this  regime:  he 
began  to  strike  the  attitude  of  the  Great  Master,  who  gives 
advice  and  encouragement  to  the  struggling  neophyte. 
He  held  himself  up  as  an  example  of  the  reward  of  dis 
interestedness,  of  the  triumph  of  the  artist  who  clings 
doggedly  to  his  ideals. 

"A  man  must  believe  in  his  star — look  at  Napoleon! 
It's  the  trust  in  one's  convictions  that  tells — it  always  ends 
by  forcing  the  public  into  line.  Only  be  sure  you  make 
no  concessions — don't  give  in  to  any  of  their  humbug! 
An  artist  who  listens  to  the  critics  is  ruined — they  never 
have  any  use  for  the  poor  devils  who  do  what  they're  told. 
Run  after  fame  and  she'll  keep  you  running,  but  stay  in 
your  own  corner  and  do  your  own  work,  and  by  George 
sir,  she'll  come  crawling  up  on  her  hands  and  knees  and 
ask  to  have  her  likeness  done!" 

These  exhortations  were  chiefly  directed  to  Stanwell, 
partly  because  the  inmates  of  the  other  studios  were  apt 
to  elude  them,  partly  also  because  the  rumours  concern 
ing  Stanwell's  portrait  of  Mrs.  Millington  had  begun  to 
disquiet  the  sculptor.  At  first  he  had  taken  a  condescend 
ing  interest  in  the  fact  of  his  friend's  receiving  an  order, 
and  had  admonished  him  not  to  lose  the  chance  of  "show 
ing  up "  his  sitter  and  her  environment.  It  was  a  splendid 
opportunity  for  a  fellow  with  a  "message"  to  be  intro 
duced  into  the  tents  of  the  Philistine,  and  Stanwell  was 
[221] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

charged  to  drive  a  long  sharp  nail  into  the  enemy's  skull. 
But  presently  Arran  began  to  suspect  that  the  portrait  was 
not  as  comminatory  as  he  could  have  wished.  Mungold, 
the  most  kindly  of  rivals,  let  drop  a  word  of  injudicious 
praise:  the  picture,  he  said,  promised  to  be  delightfully 
"in  keeping"  with  the  decorations  of  the  ball-room,  and 
the  lady's  gown  harmonised  exquisitely  with  the  window- 
curtains.  Stan  well,  called  to  account  by  his  monitor,  re 
minded  the  latter  that  he  himself  had  been  selected  by 
Mungold  to  do  the  Cupids  for  Mrs.  Millington's  ball 
room,  and  that  the  friendly  artist's  praise  could,  therefore, 
not  be  taken  as  positive  evidence  of  incapacity. 

"Ah,  but  I  didn't  do  them— I  kicked  him  out!"  Cas 
par  rejoined;  and  Stan  well  could  only  plead  that,  even  in 
the  cause  of  art,  one  could  hardly  kick  a  lady. 

"Ah,  that's  the  worst  of  it.  If  the  women  get  at  you 
you're  lost.  You're  young,  you're  impressionable,  you 
won't  mind  my  saying  that  you're  not  built  for  a  Stoic, 
and  hang  it,  they'll  coddle  you,  they'll  enervate  you,  they'll 
sentimentalise  you,  they'll  make  a  Mungold  of  you!" 

"Poor  Mungold,"  Stanwell  laughed.  "If  he  lived  the 
life  of  an  anchorite  he  couldn't  help  painting  pictures  that 
would  please  Mrs.  Millington." 

"Whereas  you  could,"  Kate  interjected,  raising  her 
head  from  the  ironing-board  where,  Sphinx-like,  mag 
nificent,  she  swung  a  splendid  arm  above  her  brother's 


shirts. 


[222] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

"Oh,  well,  perhaps  I  shan't  please  her;  perhaps  I  shall 
elevate  her  taste." 

Caspar  directed  a  groan  to  his  sister.  "That's  what 
they  all  think  at  first— Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower 
came.  But  inside  the  Dark  Tower  there's  the  Venusberg. 
Oh,  I  don't  mean  that  you'll  be  taken  with  truffles  and 
plush  footmen,  like  Mungold.  But  praise,  my  poor  Ned — 
praise  is  a  deadly  drug!  It's  the  absinthe  of  the  artist — 
and  they'll  stupefy  you  with  it.  You'll  wallow  in  the  mire 
of  success." 

Stan  well  raised  a  protesting  hand.  "Really,  for  one  order 
you're  a  little  lurid!" 

"One?  Haven't  you  already  had  a  dozen  others?" 

"Only  one  other,  so  far — and  I'm  not  sure  I  shall  do 
that." 

"Not  sure — wavering  already!  That's  the  way  the  mis 
chief  begins.  If  the  women  get  a  fad  for  you  they'll  work  . 
you  like  a  galley-slave.  You'll  have  to  do  your  round  of 
'copy'  every  morning.  What  becomes  of  inspiration  then? 
How  are  you  going  to  loaf  and  invite  the  soul?  Don't 
barter  your  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage !  Oh,  I  under 
stand  the  temptation — I  know  the  taste  of  money  and  suc 
cess.  But  look  at  me,  Stanwell.  You  know  how  long  I 
had  to  wait  for  recognition.  Well,  now  it's  come  to  me  I 
don't  mean  to  let  it  knock  me  off  my  feet.  I  don't  mean  to 
let  myself  be  overworked;  I've  already  made  it  known 
that  I  will  not  be  bullied  into  taking  more  orders  than  I 
[2231 


THE   POT-BOILER 

can  do  full  justice  to.  And  my  sister  is  with  me,  God  bless 
her;  Kate  would  rather  go  on  ironing  my  shirts  in  a  garret 
than  see  me  prostitute  my  art!" 

Kate's  radiant  glance  confirmed  this  declaration  of 
independence,  and  Stanwell,  with  his  evasive  laugh,  asked 
her  if,  meanwhile,  she  should  object  to  his  investing  a 
part  of  his  ill-gotten  gains  in  theatre  tickets  for  the  party 
that  evening. 

It  appeared  that  Stanwell  had  also  been  paid  in  ad 
vance,  and  well  paid;  for  he  began  to  permit  himself  vari 
ous  mild  distractions,  in  which  he  generally  contrived  to 
have  the  Arrans  share.  It  seemed  perfectly  natural  to 
Kate  that  Caspar's  friends  should  spend  their  money  for 
his  recreation,  and  by  one  of  the  most  touching  sophistries 
of  her  sex  she  thus  reconciled  herself  to  taking  a  little 
pleasure  on  her  own  account.  Mungold  was  less  often 
in  the  way,  for  she  had  never  been  able  to  forgive  him 
for  proposing  that  Caspar  should  do  Mrs.  Millington's 
Cupids;  and  for  a  few  happy  weeks  Stanwell  had  the 
undisputed  enjoyment  of  her  pride  in  her  brother's  achieve 
ment. 

Stanwell  had  "rushed  through"  Mrs.  Millington's  por 
trait  in  time  for  the  opening  of  her  new  ball-room;  and  it 
was  perhaps  in  return  for  this  favour  that  she  consented  to 
let  the  picture  be  exhibited  at  a  big  Portrait  Show  which 
was  held  in  April  for  the  benefit  of  a  fashionable  charity. 

In  Mrs.  Millington's  ball-room  the  picture  had  been 
[224] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

seen  and  approved  only  by  the  distinguished  few  who  had 
access  to  that  social  sanctuary;  but  on  the  walls  of  the  ex 
hibition  it  became  a  centre  of  comment  and  discussion. 
One  of  the  immediate  results  of  this  publicity  was  a  visit 
from  Shepson,  with  two  or  three  orders  in  his  pocket,  as 
he  put  it.  He  surveyed  the  studio  with  fresh  disgust,  asked 
Stanwell  why  he  did  not  move,  and  was  impressed  rather 
than  downcast  on  learning  that  the  painter  had  not  de 
cided  whether  he  would  take  any  more  orders  that  spring. 

"You  might  haf  a  studio  at  Newport,"  he  suggested. 
"It  would  be  rather  new  to  do  your  sitters  out  of  doors, 
with  the  sea  behind  them — showing  they  had  a  blace  on 
the  gliffs!" 

The  picture  produced  a  different  and  less  flattering 
effect  on  the  critics.  They  gave  it,  indeed,  more  space  than 
they  had  ever  before  accorded  to  the  artist's  efforts,  but 
their  estimate  seemed  to  confirm  Caspar  Arran's  fore 
bodings,  and  Stanwell  had  perhaps  never  despised  them 
so  little  as  when  he  read  their  comments  on  his  work. 
On  the  whole,  however,  neither  praise  nor  blame  disquieted 
him.  He  was  engrossed  in  the  contemplation  of  Kate 
Arran's  happiness,  and  basking  in  the  refracted  warmth 
it  shed  about  her.  The  doctor's  prognostications  had  come 
true.  Caspar  was  putting  on  a  pound  a  week,  and  had 
plunged  into  a  fresh  "creation"  more  symbolic  and  en 
cumbering  than  the  monument  of  which  he  had  been  so 
opportunely  relieved.  If  there  was  any  cloud  on  Stan- 
[225] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

well's  enjoyment  of  life,  it  was  caused  by  the  discovery 
that  success  had  quadrupled  Caspar's  artistic  energies. 
Meanwhile  it  was  delightful  to  see  Kate's  joy  in  her 
brother's  recovered  capacity  for  work,  and  to  listen  to  the 
axioms  which,  for  Stanwell's  guidance,  she  deduced  from 
the  example  of  Caspar's  heroic  devotion  to  the  ideal.  There 
was  nothing  repellent  in  Kate's  borrowed  didacticism.  If 
it  sometimes  bored  Stanwell  to  hear  her  quote  her  brother, 
he  was  sure  it  would  never  bore  him  to  be  quoted  by  her 
himself;  and  there  were  moments  when  he  felt  he  had 
nearly  achieved  that  distinction. 

Caspar  was  not  addicted  to  the  visiting  of  art  exhibitions. 
He  took  little  interest  in  any  productions  save  his  own, 
and  was  disposed  to  believe  that  good  pictures,  like 
clever  criminals,  are  apt  to  go  unhung.  Stanwell  therefore 
thought  it  unlikely  that  his  portrait  of  Mrs.  Milling- 
ton  would  be  seen  by  Kate,  who  was  not  given  to  inde 
pendent  explorations  in  the  field  of  art;  but  one  day,  on 
entering  the  exhibition — which  he  had  hitherto  rather 
nervously  shunned — he  saw  the  Arrans  at  the  end  of  the 
gallery  in  which  the  portrait  hung.  They  were  not  look 
ing  at  it,  they  were  moving  away  from  it,  and  to  Stanwell's 
quickened  perceptions  their  movement  was  almost  that  of 
flight.  For  a  moment  he  thought  of  flying  too;  then  a 
desperate  resolve  nerved  him  to  meet  them,  and  stemming 
the  crowd  he  made  a  circuit  which  brought  him  face  to 
face  with  their  retreat. 

[2261 


THE   POT-BOILER 

The  room  in  which  they  met  was  nearly  empty,  and 
there  was  nothing  to  intervene  between  the  shock  of  their 
interchanged  glances.  Caspar  was  flushed  and  bristling: 
his  little  Tbody  quivered  like  a  machine  from  which  the 
steam  has  just  been  turned  off.  Kate  lifted  a  stricken  glance. 
Stanwell  read  in  it  the  reflection  of  her  brother's  tirade, 
but  she  held  out  her  hand  in  silence. 

For  a  moment  Caspar  was  silent  too;  then,  with  a  terri 
ble  smile:  "My  dear  fellow,  I  congratulate  you:  Mungold 
will  have  to  look  to  his  laurels,"  he  said. 

The  shot  delivered,  he  stalked  away  with  his  seven- 
league  stride,  and  Kate  follov7ed  sadly  in  his  wake. 


OHEPSON  took  up  his  hat  with  a  despairing  gesture. 
^  "Veil,  I  gif  you  up — I  gif  you  up!" 

"Don't — yet,"  protested  Stanwell  from  the  divan. 

It  was  winter  again,  and  though  the  janitor  had  not  for 
gotten  the  fire,  the  studio  gave  no  other  evidence  of  its 
master's  increasing  prosperity.  If  Stanwell  spent  his  money 
it  was  not  on  himself. 

He  leaned  back  against  the  wall,  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
a  cigarette  between  his  lips,  while  Shepson  paced  the  dirty 
floor  or  halted  impatiently  before  an  untouched  canvas 
on  the  easel. 

"I  tell  you  vat  it  is,  Mr.  Sdanwell,  I  can't  make  you 
[2271 


THE    POT-BOILER 

out!"  he  lamented.  "Last  vinter  you  got  a  sdart  that 
vould  have  kept  most  men  going  for  years.  After  making 
dat  hit  vith  Mrs.  Millington's  picture  you  could  have 
bainted  half  the  town.  And  here  you  are  sitting  on  your 
difan  and  saying  you  can't  make  up  your  mind  to  take 
another  order.  Veil,  I  can  only  say  that  if  you  dake  much 
longer  to  make  it  up,  you'll  find  some  other  chap  has  cut 
in  and  got  your  job.  Mrs.  Van  Orley  has  been  waiting 
since  last  August,  and  she  dells  me  you  haven't  even  an 
swered  her  letter." 

"How  could  I  ?  I  didn't  know  if  I  wanted  to  paint  her." 

"My  goodness!  Don't  you  know  if  you  vant  three 
thousand  tollars  ?  " 

Stanwell  surveyed  his  cigarette.  "I'm  not  sure  I  do,'* 
he  said. 

Shepson  flung  out  his  hands.  "Ask  more  den — but  do 
it  quick!" 

Left  to  himself,  Stanwell  stood  contemplating  the  can 
vas  on  which  the  dealer  had  riveted  his  reproachful  gaze. 
It  had  been  destined  to  reflect  the  opulent  image  of  Mrs. 
Alpheus  Van  Orley,  but  some  secret  reluctance  of  Stan- 
well's  had  stayed  the  execution  of  the  task.  He  had  painted 
two  of  Mrs.  Millington's  friends  in  the  spring,  had  been 
much  praised  and  liberally  paid  for  his  work,  and  then, 
declining  several  orders  to  be  executed  at  Newport,  had 
surprised  his  friends  by  remaining  quietly  in  town.  It  was 
not  till  August  that  he  hired  a  little  cottage  on  the  New 
[  228  ] 


THE    POT-BOILER 

Jersey  coast  and  invited  the  Arrans  to  visit  him.  They 
accepted  the  invitation,  and  the  three  had  spent  together 
six  weeks  of  seashore  idleness,  during  which  Stanwell's 
modest  rafters  shook  with  Caspar's  denunciations  of  his 
host's  venality,  and  the  brightness  of  Kate's  gratitude 
was  tempered  by  a  tinge  of  reproach.  But  her  grief  over 
Stanwell's  apostasy  could  not  efface  the  fact  that  he  had 
offered  her  brother  the  means  of  escape  from  town,  and 
Stanwell  himself  was  consoled  by  the  reflection  that  but 
for  Mrs.  Millington's  portrait  he  could  not  have  performed 
even  this  trifling  service  for  his  friends. 

When  the  Arrans  left  him  in  September  he  went  to  pay 
a  few  visits  in  the  country,  and  on  his  return,  a  month 
later,  to  the  studio  building,  he  found  that  things  had  not 
gone  well  with  Caspar.  The  little  sculptor  had  caught  cold, 
and  the  labour  and  expense  of  converting  his  gigantic  off 
spring  into  marble  seemed  to  hang  heavily  upon  him. 
He  and  Kate  were  living  in  a  damp  company  of  amor 
phous  clay  monsters,  unfinished  witnesses  to  the  creative 
frenzy  which  had  seized  him  after  the  sale  of  his  group; 
and  the  doctor  had  urged  that  his  patient  should  be  re 
moved  to  warmer  and  drier  lodgings.  But  to  uproot  Cas 
par  was  impossible,  and  his  sister  could  only  feed  the 
stove,  and  swaddle  him  in  mufflers  and  felt  slippers. 

Stanwell  found  that  during  his  absence  Mungold 
had  reappeared,  fresh  and  rosy  from  a  summer  in  Europe, 
and  as  prodigal  as  ever  of  the  only  form  of  attention  which 
[229] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

Kate  could  be  counted  on  not  to  resent.  The  gpme  and 
champagne  reappeared  with  him,  and  he  seemed  as  ready 
as  Stanwell  to  lend  a  patient  ear  to  Caspar's  homilies. 
But  Stanwell  could  see  that,  even  now,  Kate  had  not  for 
given  him  for  the  Cupids.  Stanwell  himself  had  spent  the 
early  winter  months  in  idleness.  The  sight  of  his  tools  filled 
him  with  a  strange  repugnance,  and  he  absented  himself 
as  much  as  possible  from  the  studio.  But  Shepson's  visit 
roused  him  to  the  fact  that  he  must  decide  on  some  definite 
course  of  action.  If  he  wished  to  follow  up  his  success  of 
the  previous  spring  he  must  refuse  no  more  orders:  he 
must  not  let  Mrs.  Van  Orley  slip  away  from  him.  He 
knew  there  were  competitors  enough  ready  to  profit  by  his 
hesitations,  and  since  his  success  was  the  result  of  a  whim, 
a  whim  might  undo  it.  With  a  gesture  of  decision  he  caught 
up  his  hat  and  left  the  studio. 

On  the  landing  he  met  Kate  Arran.  She  too  was  going 
out,  drawn  forth  by  the  sudden  radiance  of  the  January 
afternoon.  She  met  him  with  a  smile  which  seemed  the 
answer  to  his  uncertainties,  and  he  asked  if  she  had  time 
to  take  a  walk  with  him. 

Yes;  for  once  she  had  time,  for  Mr.  Mungold  was  sitting 
with  Caspar,  and  had  promised  to  remain  till  she  came 
in.  It  mattered  little  to  Stanwell  that  Mungold  was  with 
Caspar  as  long  as  he  himself  was  with  Kate;  and  he  in 
stantly  soared  to  the  suggestion  that  they  should  prolong 
the  painter's  vigil  by  taking  the  "elevated"  to  the  Park. 
[230] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

In  this  too  his  companion  acquiesced  after  a  moment  of 
surprise:  she  seemed  in  a  consenting  mood,  and  Stan  well 
augured  well  from  the  fact. 

The  Park  was  clothed  in  the  double  glitter  of  snow  and 
sunshine.  They  roamed  the  hard  white  alleys  to  a  continu 
ous  tinkle  of  sleigh-bells,  and  Kate  brightened  with  the 
exhilaration  of  the  scene.  It  was  not  often  that  she  permitted 
herself  such  an  escape  from  routine,  and  in  this  new  en 
vironment,  which  seemed  to  detach  her  from  her  daily 
setting,  Stanwell  had  his  first  complete  vision  of  her.  To 
the  girl  also  their  unwonted  isolation  seemed  to  create  a 
sense  of  fuller  communion,  for  she  began  presently,  as  they 
reached  the  leafless  solitude  of  the  Ramble,  to  speak  with 
sudden  freedom  of  her  brother.  It  appeared  that  the  orders 
against  which  Caspar  had  so  heroically  steeled  himself 
were  slow  in  coming:  he  had  received  no  commission  since 
the  sale  of  his  group,  and  he  was  beginning  to  suffer  from 
a  reaction  of  discouragement.  Oh,  it  was  not  the  craving 
for  popularity — Stanwell  knew  how  far  above  that  he 
stood.  But  it  had  been  exquisite,  yes,  exquisite  to  him  to 
find  himself  believed  in,  understood.  He  had  fancied  that 
the  purchase  of  the  group  was  the  dawn  of  a  tardy  recog 
nition — and  now  the  darkness  of  indifference  had  closed 
in  again,  no  one  spoke  of  him,  no  one  wrote  of  him,  no 
one  cared. 

"If  he  were  in  good  health  it  wouldn't  matter — he  would 
throw  off  such  weakness,  he'd  live  only  for  the  joy  of  his 
[231] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

work;  but  he's  losing  ground,  his  strength  is  failing,  and 
he's  so  afraid  there  will  not  be  time  enough  left — time 
enough  for  full  recognition,"  she  explained. 

The  quiver  in  her  voice  silenced  Stan  well:  he  was 
afraid  of  echoing  it  with  his  own.  At  length  he  said: 
"Oh,  more  orders  will  come.  Success  is  a  gradual 
growth." 

"Yes,  real  success,"  she  said,  with  a  solemn  note  in 
which  he  caught — and  forgave — a  reflection  on  his  own 
facile  triumphs. 

"But  when  the  orders  do  come,"  she  continued  "will 
he  have  strength  to  carry  them  out?  Last  winter  the 
doctor  thought  he  only  needed  work  to  set  him  up;  now 
he  talks  of  rest  instead !  He  says  we  ought  to  go  to  a  warm 
climate — but  how  can  Caspar  leave  the  group?" 

"Oh,  hang  the  group — let  him  chuck  the  order!" 

She  looked  at  him  tragically.  "The  money  is  spent," 
she  said. 

Stan  well  coloured  to  the  roots  of  his  hair.  "But  ill- 
health — ill-health  excuses  everything.  If  he  goes  away 
now  he'll  come  back  good  for  twice  the  amount  of  work 
in  the  spring.  A  sculptor's  not  expected  to  deliver  a  statue 
on  a  given  day,  like  a  package  of  groceries!  You  must 
do  as  the  doctor  says — you  must  make  him  chuck  every 
thing  and  go." 

They  had  reached  a  windless  nook  above  the  lake,  and, 
pausing  in  the  stress  of  their  talk,  she  let  herself  sink  on 


THE   POT-BOILER 

a  bench  beside  the  path.  The  movement  encouraged  him, 
and  he  seated  himself  at  her  side. 

"  You  must  take  him  away  at  once,"  he  repeated  urgently. 
"He  must  be  made  comfortable — you  must  both  be  free 
from  worry.  And  I  want  you  to  let  me  manage  it  for  you — " 

He  broke  off,  silenced  by  her  rising  blush,  her  protesting 
murmur. 

"Oh,  stop,  please;  let  me  explain,"  he  went  on.  "I'm 
not  talking  of  lending  you  money;  I'm  talking  of  giving 
you — myself.  The  offer  may  be  just  as  unacceptable,  but 
it's  of  a  kind  to  which  it's  customary  to  accord  a  hear 
ing.  I  should  have  made  it  a  year  ago — the  first  day  I 
saw  you,  I  believe! — but  that,  then,  it  wasn't  in  my  power 
to  make  things  easier  for  you.  Now,  you  know,  I've-  had 
a  little  luck.  Since  I  painted  Mrs.  Millington  things  have 
changed.  I  believe  I  can  get  as  many  orders  as  I  choose — 
there  are  two  or  three  people  waiting  now.  What's  the  use 
of  it  all,  if  it  doesn't  bring  me  a  little  happiness  ?  And  the 
only  happiness  I  know  is  the  kind  you  can  give  me." 

He  paused,  suddenly  losing  the  courage  to  look  at  her, 
so  that  her  pained  murmur  was  framed  for  him  in  a  glit 
tering  vision  of  the  frozen  lake.  He  turned  with  a  start 
and  met  the  refusal  in  her  eyes. 

"No — really  no?"  he  repeated. 

She  shook  her  head  silently. 

"I  could  have  helped  you — I  could  have  helped  you!" 
he  sighed. 

[233] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

She  flushed  distressfully,  but  kept  her  eyes  on  his. 

"It's  just  that — don't  you  see?"  she  reproached  him. 

"Just  that— the  fact  that  I  could  be  of  use  to  you?" 

"The  fact  that,  as  you  say,  things  have  changed  since 
you  painted  Mrs.  Millington.  I  haven't  seen  the  later  por 
traits,  but  they  tell  me — " 

"Oh,  they're  just  as  bad!"  Stan  well  jeered. 

"You've  sold  your  talent,  and  you  know  it:  that's  the 
dreadful  part.  You  did  it  deliberately,"  she  cried  with 
passion. 

"Oh,  deliberately,"  he  grimly  assented. 

"And  you're  not  ashamed — you  talk  of  going  on!" 

"I'm  not  ashamed;  I  talk  of  going  on." 

She  received  this  with  a  long  shuddering  sigh,  and  turned 
her  eyes  away  from  him. 

"ph,  why — why — why?"  she  lamented. 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Stanwell's  tongue  to  answer:  "That 
I  might  say  to  you  what  I'm  saying  now — "  but  he  re 
plied  instead:  "A  man  may  paint  bad  pictures  and  be  a 
decent  fellow.  Look  at  Mungold,  after  all!" 

The  adjuration  had  an  unexpected  effect.  Kate's  colour 
faded  suddenly,  and  she  sat  motionless,  with  a  stricken 
face.  .', 

"There's  a  difference — "  she  began  at  length  abruptly; 
"the  difference  you've  always  insisted  on.  Mr.  Mungold 
paints  as  well  as  he  can.  He  has  no  idea  that  his  pictures 
are — less  good  than  they  might  be." 
[234] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

"Well—  ?" 

"So  he  can't  be  accused  of  doing  what  he  does  for  money 
— of  sacrificing  anything  better."  She  turned  on  him  with 
troubled  eyes.  "  It  was  you  who  made  me  understand  that, 
when  Caspar  used  to  make  fun  of  him." 

Stan  well  smiled.  "I'm  glad  you  still  think  me  a  better 
painter  than  Mungold.  But  isn't  it  hard  that  for  that  very 
reason  I  should  starve  in  a  hole  ?  If  I  painted  badly  enough 
you'd  see  no  objection  to  my  living  at  the  Waldorf!" 

"Ah,  don't  joke  about  it,"  she  murmured.  "Don't 
triumph  in  it." 

"I  see  no  reason  to  at  present,"  said  Stan  well  drily. 
"But  I  won't  pretend  to  be  ashamed  when  I'm  not.  I 
think  there  are  occasions  when  a  man  is  justified  in  doing 
what  I've  done." 

She  looked  at  him  solemnly.  "What  occasions?" 

"Why,  when  he  wants  money,  hang  it!" 

She  drew  a  deep  breath.  "Money — money?  Has  Cas 
par's  example  been  nothing  to  you,  then?" 

"It  hasn't  proved  to  me  that  I  must  starve  while  Mun 
gold  lives  on  truffles!" 

Again  her  face  changed  and  she  stirred  uneasily,  and 
then  rose  to  her  feet. 

"There's  no  occasion  which  can  justify  an  artist's 
sacrificing  his  convictions!"  she  exclaimed. 

Stanwell  rose  too,  facing  her  with  a  mounting  urgency 
which  sent  a  flush  to  his  cheek. 
[235'] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

"  Can't  you  conceive  such  an  occasion  in  my  case  ?  The 
wish,  I  mean,  to  make  things  easier  for  Caspar — to  help 
you  in  any  way  you  might  let  me?" 

Her  face  reflected  his  blush,  and  she  stood  gazing  at 
him  with  a  wounded  wonder. 

"Caspar  and  I — you  imagine  we  could  live  on  money 
earned  in  that  way?" 

Stan  well  made  an  impatient  gesture.  '"You've  got  to 
live  on  something — or  he  has,  even  if  you  don't  include 
yourself!" 

Her  blush  deepened  miserably,  but  she  held  her  head 
high. 

"That's  just  it — that's  what  I  came  here  to  say  to  you." 
She  stood  a  moment  gazing  away  from  him  at  the  lake. 

He  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  "You  came  here  to  say 
something  to  me?" 

"Yes.  That  we've  got  to  live  on  something,  Caspar  and 
I,  as  you  say;  and  since  an  artist  cannot  sacrifice  his  con 
victions,  the  sacrifice  must — I  mean — I  wanted  you  to 
know  that  I  have  promised  to  marry  Mr.  Mungold." 

"Mungold!"  Stan  well  cried  with  a  sharp  note  of  irony; 
but  her  white  look  checked  it  on  his  lips. 

"I  know  all  you  are  going  to  say,"  she  murmured,  with 
a  kind  of  nobility  which  moved  him  even  through  his  sense 
of  its  grotesqueness.  "But  you  must  see  the  distinction, 
because  you  first  made  it  clear  to  me.  I  can  take  money 
earned  in  good  faith — I  can  let  Caspar  live  on  it.  I  can 
[236] 


THE   POT-BOILER 

many  Mr.  Mungold  because,  though  his  pictures  are 
bad,  he  does  not  prostitute  his  art." 

She  began  to  move  away  from  him,  and  he  followed  her 
in  silence  along  the  frozen  path. 

When  Stanwell  re-entered  his  studio  the  dusk  had  fallen. 
He  lit  his  lamp  and  rummaged  out  some  writing-materials. 
Having  found  them,  he  wrote  to  Shepson  to  say  that  he 
could  not  paint  Mrs.  Van  Orley,  and  did  not  care  to  accept 
any  more  orders  for  the  present.  He  sealed  and  stamped 
the  letter  and  flung  it  over  the  banisters  for  the  janitor  to 
post;  then  he  dragged  out  his  unfinished  head  of  Kate 
Arran,  replaced  it  on  the  easel,  and  sat  down  before  it  with 
a  grim  smile. 


'  dp 

v  VS     t> 


• 


[237] 


Xri'V 


THE  BEST  MAN 


THE   BEST   MAN 


DUSK  had  fallen,  and  the  circle  of  light  shed  by 
the  lamp  on  Governor  Morn  way's  writing-table 
just  rescued  from  the  surrounding  dimness  his 
own  imposing  bulk,  thrown  back  in  a  deep  chair  in  the 
lounging  attitude  habitual  to  him  at  that  hour. 

When  the  Governor  of  Midsylvania  rested  he  rested 
completely.  Five  minutes  earlier  he  had  been  bowed  over 
his  office  desk,  an  Atlas  with  the  State  on  his  shoulders; 
now,  his  working  hours  over,  he  had  the  air  of  a  man  who 
has  spent  his  day  in  desultory  pleasure,  and  means  to 
end  it  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  good  dinner.  This  freedom 
from  care  threw  into  relief  the  hovering  unrest  of  his  sister, 
Mrs.  Nimick,  who,  just  outside  the  circle  of  lamplight, 
haunted  the  gloom  of  the  hearth,  from  which  the  wood 
fire  now  and  then  shot  up  an  exploring  flash  into  her 
face. 

Mrs.  Nimick's  presence  did  not  usually  minister  to 
repose;  but  the  Governor's  calm  was  too  deep  to  be  easily 
disturbed,  and  he  felt  the  composure  of  a  man  who  knows 
there  is  a  mosquito  in  the  room,  but  has  drawn  the  net 
ting  close  about  his  head.  This  composure  reflected  itself 
[241] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

in  the  accent  with  which  he  said,  throwing  himself  back 
to  smile  up  at  his  sister:  "You  know  I  am  not  going  to 
make  any  appointments  for  a  week." 

It  was  the  day  after  the  great  reform  victory  which  had 
put  John  Mornway  for  the  second  time  at  the  head  of  his 
State,  a  triumph  compared  with  which  even  the  mighty 
battle  of  his  first  election  sank  into  insignificance,  and  he 
leaned  back  with  the  sense  of  unassailable  serenity  which 
follows  on  successful  effort. 

Mrs.  Nimick  murmured  an  apology.  "I  didn't  under 
stand — I  saw  in  this  morning's  papers  that  the  Attorney- 
General  was  reappointed." 

"Oh,  Fleetwood — his  reappointment  was  involved  in 
the  campaign.  He's  one  of  the  principles  I  represent!" 

Mrs.  Nimick  smiled  a  little  tartly.  "It  seems  odd  to 
some  people  to  think  of  Mr.  Fleetwood  in  connection 
with  principles." 

The  Governor's  smile  had  no  answering  acerbity;  the 
mention  of  his  Attorney-General's  name  had  set  his 
blood  humming  with  the  thrill  of  the  fight,  and  he  wondered 
how  it  was  that  Fleetwood  had  not  already  been  in  to 
shake  hands  with  him  over  their  triumph. 

"No,"  he  said  good-humouredly,  "two  years  ago  Fleet- 
wood's  name  didn't  stand  for  principles  of  any  sort;  but 
I  believed  in  him,  and  look  what  he's  done  for  me!  I 
thought  he  .was  too  big  a  man  not  to  see  in  time  that 
statesmanship  is  a  finer  thing  than  politics,  and  now  that 
[242] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

I*ve  given  him  a  chance  to  make  the  discovery  he's  on 
the  way  to  becoming  just  such  a  statesman  as  the  country 
needs." 

"Oh,  it's  a  great  deal  easier  and  pleasanter  to  believe 
in  people,"  replied  Mrs.  Nimick,  in  a  tone  of  occult  al 
lusion,  "and  of  course  we  all  knew  Mr.  Fleetwood  would 
have  a  hearing  before  any  one  else." 

The  Governor  took  this  imperturbably.  "Well,  at  any 
rate,  he  isn't  going  to  fill  all  the  offices  in  the  State;  there 
will  probably  be  one  or  two  to  spare  after  he  has  helped 
himself,  and  when  the  time  conies  I'll  think  over  your 
man,  I'll  consider  him." 

Mrs.  Nimick  brightened.  "It  would  make  such  a 
difference  to  Jack — it  might  mean  anything  to  the  poor 
boy  to  have  Mr.  Ashford  appointed!" 

The  Governor  held  up  a  warning  hand. 

"Oh,  I  know,  one  mustn't  say  that,  or  at  least  you 
mustn't  listen.  You're  so  dreadfully  afraid  of  nepotism. 
But  I'm  not  asking  for  Jack — I've  never  asked  for  a 
crust  for  any  of  us,  thank  Heaven!  No  one  can  point  to 
me — "  Mrs.  Nimick  checked  herself  and  continued  in  a 
more  impersonal  tone:  "But  there's  no  harm,  surely,  in 
my  saying  a  word  for  Mr.  Ashford,  when  I  know  he's 
actually  under  consideration.  I  don't  see  why  the  fact 
that  Jack  is  in  his  office  should  prevent  my  speaking." 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  the  Governor,  "it  implies,  on 
your  part,  a  personal  knowledge  of  Mr.  Ashford's  quali- 
[243] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

fications  which  may  be  of  great  help  to  me  in  reaching 
a  decision." 

Mrs.  Nimick  never  quite  knew  how  to  meet  him  when 
he  took  that  tone,  and  the  flickering  fire  made  her  face  for 
a  moment  the  picture  of  uncertainty;  then  at  all  hazards 
she  launched  out:  "Well,  I've  Ella's  promise  at  any 
rate." 

The  Governor  sat  upright.  "Ella's  promise?" 

"To  back  me  up.  She  thoroughly  approves  of  him!" 

The  Governor  smiled.  "You  talk  as  if  my  wife  had  a 
political  salon  and  distributed  lettres  de  cachet!  I'm  glad 
she  approves  of  Ashford;  but  if  you  think  she  makes  my 
appointments  for  me — "  He  broke  off  with  a  laugh  at 
the  superfluity  of  the  protest. 

Mrs.  Nimick  reddened.  "One  never  knows  how  you 
will  take  the  simplest  thing.  What  harm  is  there  in  my 
saying  that  Ella  approves  of  Mr.  Ashford  ?  I  thought  you 
liked  her  to  take  an  interest  in  your  work." 

"I  like  it  immensely.  But  I  shouldn't  care  to  have  it 
take  that  form." 

"What  form?" 

"That  of  promising  to  use  her  influence  to  get  people 
appointed.  But  you  always  talk  of  politics  in  the  vocabu 
lary  of  European  courts.  Thank  Heaven,  Ella  has  less 
imagination.  She  has  her  sympathies,  of  course,  but  she 
doesn't  think  they  can  affect  the  distribution  of  offices." 

Mrs.  Nimick  gathered  up  her  furs  with  an  air  at  once 
[244] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

crestfallen  and  resentful.  "I'm  sorry — I  always  seem  to 
say  the  wrong  thing.  I'm  sure  I  came  with  the  best  in 
tentions — it's  natural  that  your  sister  should  want  to  be 
with  you  at  such  a  happy  moment." 

"Of  course,  it  is,  my  dear,"  exclaimed  the  Governor 
genially,  as  he  rose  to  grasp  the  hands  with  which  she 
was  nervously  adjusting  her  wraps. 

Mrs.  Nimick,  who  lived  a  little  way  out  of  town,  and 
whose  visits  to  her  brother  were  apparently  achieved  at 
the  cost  of  immense  effort  and  mysterious  complications, 
had  come  to  congratulate  him  on  his  victory,  and  to  sound 
him  regarding  the  nomination  to  a  coveted  post  of  the  lawyer 
to  whose  office  her  eldest  son  had  lately  been  admitted. 
In  the  urgency  of  the  latter  errand  she  had  rather  lost 
sight  of  the  former,  but  her  face  softened  as  the  Governor, 
keeping  her  hands  in  his,  said  in  the  voice  which  always 
seemed  to  put  the  most  generous  interpretation  on  her 
motives:  "I  was  sure  you'd  be  one  of  the  first  to  give  me 
your  blessing." 

"Oh,  your  success — no  one  feels  it  more  than  I  do!" 
sighed  Mrs.  Nimick,  always  at  home  in  the  emotional 
key.  "I  keep  in  the  background,  I  make  no  noise,  I  claim 
no  credit,  but  whatever  happens,  no  one  shall  ever  pre 
vent  my  rejoicing  in  my  brother's  success!" 

Mrs.  Nimick 's  felicitations  were  always  couched  in  the 
conditional,  with  a  side-glance  at  dark  contingencies,  and 
the  Governor,  smiling  at  the  familiar  construction,  re- 
[245] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

turned  cheerfully:  "I  don't  see  why  any  one  should  want 
to  deprive  you  of  that  privilege." 

"They  couldn't— they  couldn't—"  Mrs.  Nimick  af 
firmed. 

"Well,  I'm  in  the  saddle  for  another  two  years  at  any 
rate,  so  you'd  better  put  in  all  the  rejoicing  you  can." 

"Whatever  happens — whatever  happens!"  cried  Mrs. 
Nimick,  melting  on  his  bosom. 

"The  only  thing  likely  to  happen  at  present  is  that 
you'll  miss  your  train  if  I  let  you  go  on  saying  nice  things 
to  me  much  longer." 

Mrs.  Nimick  at  this  dried  her  eyes,  renewed  her  clutch 
on  her  draperies,  and  stood  glancing  sentimentally  about 
the  room  while  her  brother  rang  for  the  carriage. 

"I  take  away  a  lovely  picture  of  you,"  she  murmured. 
"It's  wonderful  what  you've  made  of  this  hideous 
house." 

"Ah,  not  I,  but  Ella — here  she  does  reign  undisputed," 
he  acknowledged,  following  her  glance  about  the  library, 
which  wore  an  air  of  permanent  habitation,  of  slowly 
formed  intimacy  with  its  inmates,  in  marked  contrast  to 
the  gaudy  impersonality  of  the  usual  executive  apartment. 

"Oh,  she's  wonderful,  wonderful!  I  see  she  has  got  those 
imported  damask  curtains  she  was  looking  at  the  other 
day  at  Fielding's.  When  I'm  asked  how  she  does  it  all, 
I  always  say  it's  beyond  me!" 

"It's  an  art  like  another,"  smiled  the  Governor.  "Ella 
[246] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

has  been  used  to  living  in  tents  and  she  has  the  knack  of 
giving  them  a  wonderful  look  of  permanence." 

"She  certainly  makes  the  most  wonderful  bargains — 
all  the  knack  hi  the  world  won't  take  the  place  of  such 
curtains  and  carpets.'* 

"Are  they  good  ?  I'm  glad  to  hear  it.  But  all  the  curtains 
and  carpets  won't  make  a  house  comfortable  to  live  in. 
There's  where  the  knack  comes  in,  you  see." 

He  recalled  with  a  shudder  the  lean  Congressional 
years — the  years  before  his  marriage — when  Mrs.  Nimick 
had  lived  with  him  in  Washington,  and  the  daily  struggle 
in  the  House  had  been  combined  with  domestic  conflicts 
almost  as  recurrent.  The  offer  of  a  foreign  mission,  though 
disconnecting  him  from  active  politics,  had  the  advantage 
of  freeing  him  from  his  sister's  tutelage,  and  in  Europe, 
where  he  remained  for  two  years,  he  had  met  the  lady 
who  was  to  become  his  wife.  Mrs.  Renfield  was  the  widow 
of  one  of  the  diplomatists  who  languish  in  perpetual  first 
secretaryship  at  our  various  embassies.  Her  life  had  given 
her  ease  without  triviality,  and  a  sense  of  the  importance 
of  politics  seldom  found  in  ladies  of  her  nationality.  She 
regarded  a  public  life  as  the  noblest  and  most  engrossing 
of  careers,  and  combined  with  great  social  versatility  an 
equal  gift  for  reading  blue-books  and  studying  debates. 
So  sincere  was  the  latter  taste  that  she  passed  without  regret 
from  the  amenities  of  a  European  life  well  stocked  with 
picturesque  intimacies  to  the  rawness  of  the  Midsylvanian 
[«*7] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

capital.  She  helped  Mornway  in  his  fight  for  the  Governor 
ship  as  a  man  likes  to  be  helped  by  a  woman — by  her  tact, 
her  good  looks,  her  memory  for  faces,  her  knack  of  saying 
the  right  thing  to  the  right  person,  and  her  capacity  for 
obscure  hard  work  in  the  background  of  his  public  ac 
tivity.  But,  above  all,  she  helped  him  by  making  his  private 
life  smooth  and  harmonious.  For  a  man  careless  of  per 
sonal  ease  Mornway  was  singularly  alive  to  the  domestic 
amenities.  Attentive  service,  well-ordered  dinners,  brightly 
burning  fires,  and  a  scent  of  flowers  in  the  house — these 
material  details,  which  had  come  to  seem  the  extension 
of  his  wife's  personality,  the  inevitable  result  of  her  near 
ness,  were  as  agreeable  to  him  after  five  years  of  marriage 
as  in  the  first  surprise  of  his  introduction  to  them.  Mrs. 
Nimick  had  kept  house  jerkily  and  vociferously;  Ella 
performed  the  same  task  silently  and  imperceptibly,  and 
the  results  were  all  in  favour  of  the  latter  method.  Though 
neither  the  Governor  nor  his  wife  had  large  means,  the 
household,  under  Mrs.  Mornway's  guidance,  took  on 
an  air  of  sober  luxury  as  agreeable  to  her  husband  as  it 
was  exasperating  to  her  sister-in-law.  The  domestic  ma 
chinery  ran  without  a  jar.  There  were  no  upheavals,  no 
debts,  no  squalid  cookless  hiatuses  between  intervals 
of  showy  hospitality:  the  household  moved  along  on  lines 
of  quiet  elegance  and  comfort,  behind  which  only  the  eye 
of  the  housekeeping  sex  could  have  detected  a  gradually 

increasing  scale  of  expense. 

[248] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

Such  an  eye  was  now  projected  on  the  Governor's  sur 
roundings,  and  its  conclusions  were  summed  up  in  the 
tone  in  which  Mrs.  Nimick  repeated  from  the  threshold: 
"I  always  say  I  don't  see  how  she  does  it!" 

The  tone  did  not  escape  the  Governor,  but  it  disturbed 
him  no  more  than  the  buzz  of  a  baffled  insect.  Poor  Grace! 
It  was  not  his  fault  if  her  husband  was  given  to  chimerical 
investments,  if  her  sons  were  " unsatisfactory"  and  her 
cooks  would  not  stay  with  her;  but  it  was  natural  that  these 
facts  should  throw  into  irritating  contrast  the  ease  and 
harmony  of  his  own  domestic  life.  It  made  him  all  the 
sorrier  for  his  sister  to  know  that  her  envy  did  not  pene 
trate  to  the  essence  of  his  happiness,  but  lingered  on  those 
external  signs  of  well-being  which  counted  for  so  little 
in  the  sum  total  of  his  advantages.  Poor  Mrs.  Nimick 's 
life  seemed  doubly  thin  and  mean  when  one  remembered 
that,  beneath  its  shabby  surface,  there  were  no  com 
pensating  riches  of  the  spirit. 


n 


TT  was  the  custodian  of  his  own  hidden  treasure  who 
•*•  at  this  moment  broke  in  upon  his  musings.  Mrs. 
Mornway,  fresh  from  her  afternoon  drive,  entered  the 
room  with  that  air  of  ease  and  lightness  which  seemed 
to  diffuse  a  social  warmth  about  her;  fine,  slender,  pliant, 
so  polisheo!  and  modelled  by  an  intelligent  experience  of 
[249] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

life  that  youth  seemed  clumsy  in  her  presence.  She  looked 
down  at  her  husband  and  shook  her  head. 

"You  promised  to  keep  the  afternoon  to  yourself,  and 
I  hear  Grace  has  been  here." 

"Poor  Grace — she  didn't  stay  long,  and  I  should  have 
been  a  brute  not  to  see  her.'* 

He  leaned  back,  filling  his  gaze  to  the  brim  with  her 
charming  image,  which  obliterated  at  a  stroke  the  fretful 
ghost  of  Mrs.  Nimick. 

"She  came  to  congratulate  you?" 

"Yes;  and  to  ask  me  to  do  something  for  Ashford." 

"  Ah — on  account  of  Jack.  What  does  she  want  for  him  ? " 

The  Governor  laughed.  "She  said  you  were  in  her  con 
fidence — that  you  were  backing  her  up.  She  seemed  to 
think  your  support  would  ensure  her  success." 

Mrs.  Mornway  smiled;  her  smile,  always  full  of  delicate 
implications,  seemed  to  caress  her  husband  while  it 
gently  mocked  his  sister. 

"Poor  Grace!  I  suppose  you  undeceived  her." 

"As  to  your  influence?  I  told  her  it  was  paramount 
where  it  ought  to  be." 

"And  where  is  that?" 

"In  the  choice  of  carpets  and  curtains.  It  seems  ours 
are  almost  too  good." 

"Thanks  for  the  compliment!  Too  good  for  what?" 

"Our  station  in  life,  I  suppose.  At  least  they  seemed 

to  bother  Grace." 

[250] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"Poor  Grace!  I've  always  bothered  her."  She  paused, 
removing  her  gloves  reflectively  and  laying  her  long  fine 
hands  on  his  shoulders  as  she  stood  behind  him.  "Then 
you  don't  believe  in  Ashford?"  Feeling  his  slight  start, 
she  drew  away  her  hands  and  raised  them  to  detach  her  veil. 

"What  makes  you  think  I  don't  believe  in  Ashford?" 

"I  asked  out  of  curiosity.  I  wondered  whether  you  had 
decided  anything." 

"No,  and  I  don't  mean  to  for  a  week.  I'm  dead  beat, 
and  I  want  to  bring  a  fresh  mind  to  the  question.  There 
is  hardly  one  appointment  I'm  sure  of  except,  of  course, 
Fleetwood's." 

She  turned  away  from  him,  smoothing  her  hair  in  the 
mirror  above  the  mantelpiece.  "You're  sure  of  that?" 
she  asked  after  a  moment. 

"Of  George  Fleetwood?  And  poor  Grace  thinks  you're 
deep  in  my  counsels!  I  am  as  sure  of  reappointing  Fleet- 
wood  as  I  am  that  I've  just  been  re-elected  myself.  I've 
never  made  any  secret  of  the  fact  that  if  they  wanted  me 
back  they  must  have  him  too." 

"You're  tremendously  generous!"  she  murmured. 

"Generous?  What  a  strange  word!  Fleetwood  is  my 
trump  card — the  one  man  I  can  count  on  to  cany  out  my 
ideas  through  thick  and  thin." 

She  mused  on  this,  smiling  a  little.  "That's  why  I  call 
you  generous — when  I  remember  how  you  disliked  him 
two  years  ago!" 

[251] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"What  of  that?  I  was  prejudiced  against  him,  I  own; 
or  rather,  I  had  a  just  distrust  of  a  man  with  such  a  past. 
But  how  splendidly  he's  wiped  it  out !  What  a  record  he's 
written  on  the  new  leaf  he  promised  to  turn  over  if  I  gave 
him  the  chance!  Do  you  know,"  the  Governor  interrupted 
himself  with  a  reminiscent  laugh,  "I  was  rather  annoyed 
with  Grace  when  she  hinted  that  you  had  promised  to  back 
up  Ashford — I  told  her  you  didn't  aspire  to  distribute 
patronage.  But  she  might  have  reminded  me — if  she'd 
known — that  it  was  you  who  persuaded  me  to  give  Fleet- 
wood  that  chance." 

Mrs.  Morn  way  turned  with  a  slight  heightening  of 
colour.  "Grace — how  could  she  possibly  have  known?" 

"She  couldn't,  of  course,  unless  she'd  read  my  weak 
ness  in  my  face.  But  why  do  you  look  so  startled  at  my 
little  joke?" 

"It's  only  that  I  so  dislike  Grace's  ineradicable  idea 
that  I  am  a  wire-puller.  Why  should  she  imagine  I  would 
help  her  about  Ashford?" 

"Oh,  Grace  has  always  been  a  mild  and  ineffectual 
conspirator,  and  she  thinks  every  other  woman  is  built  on 
the  same  plan.  But  you  did  get  Fleetwood's  job  for  him, 
you  know,"  he  repeated  with  laughing  insistence. 

"I  had  more  faith  than  you  in  human  nature,  that's 
all."  She  paused  a  moment,  and  then  added:  "Person 
ally,  you  know,  I've  always  rather  disliked  him." 

"Oh,  I  never  doubted  your  disinterestedness.  But 
[252] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

you're  not   going   to   turn   against   your   candidate,  are 
you?" 

She  hesitated.  "I  am  not  sure;  circumstances  alter 
cases.jWhen  you  made  Mr.  Fleetwood  Attorney-General 
two  years  ago  he  was  the  inevitable  man  for  the  place." 

"Well— is  there  a  better  one  now?" 

"I  don't  say  there  is — it's  not  my  business  to  look  for 
him,  at  any  rate.  What  I  mean  is  that  at  that  time  he 
was  worth  risking  anything  for — now  I  don't  know  that 
he  is." 

"  But  even  if  he  were  not,  what  do  I  risk  for  him  now  ? 
I  don't  see  your  point.  Since  he  didn't  cost  me  my  re-elec 
tion  what  can  he  possibly  cost  me  now  I'm  in  ?" 

"He's  immensely  unpopular.  He  will  cost  you  a  great 
deal  of  popularity,  and  you  have  never  pretended  to  de 
spise  that." 

"No,  nor  ever  sacrificed  anything  essential  to  it.  Are 
you  really  asking  me  to  offer  up  Fleetwood  to  it  now  ? " 

"I  don't  ask  you  to  do  anything — except  to  consider 
if  he  is  essential.  You  said  you  were  over-tired  and  wanted 
to  bring  a  fresh  mind  to  bear  on  the  other  appointments. 
Why  not  delay  this  one  too  ?" 

Mornway  turned  in  his  chair  and  looked  at  her  search- 
ingly.  "This  means  something,  Ella.  What  have  you 
heard?" 

"  Just  what  you  have,  probably,  but  with  more  attentive 
ears.  The  very  record  you  are  so  proud  of  has  made  George 
[253] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

Fleet  wood  innumerable  enemies  in  the  last  two  years. 
The  Lead  Trust  people  are  determined  to  ruin  him,  and 
if  his  reappointment  is  attacked  you  will  not  be  spared." 

"Attacked?  In  the  papers,  you  mean?" 

She  paused.  "You  know  the  'Spy'  has  always  threatened 
a  campaign.  And  he  has  a  past,  as  you  say!" 

"Which  was  public  property  long  before  I  first  ap 
pointed  him.  Nothing  could  be  gained  by  raking  up  his 
old  political  history.  Everybody  knows  he  didn't  come  to 
me  with  clean  hands,  but  to  hurt  him  now  the  '  Spy  'would 
have  to  fasten  a  new  scandal  on  him,  and  that  would  not 
be  easy." 

"It  would  be  easy  to  invent  one!" 

"Unproved  accusations  don't  count  much  against  a 
man  of  such  proved  capacity.  The  best  answer  is  his 
record  of  the  last  two  years.  That's  what  the  public  looks 
at." 

"The  public  looks  wherever  the  press  points.  And  be 
sides,  you  have  your  own  future  to  consider.  It  would  be 
a  pity  to  sacrifice  such  a  career  as  yours  for  the  sake  of 
backing  up  even  as  useful  a  man  as  George  Fleetwood." 
She  paused,  as  if  checked  by  his  gathering  frown,  but  went 
on  with  fresh  decision:  "Oh,  I'm  not  speaking  of  personal 
ambition;  I'm  thinking  of  the  good  you  can  do.  Will 
Fleetwood's  reappointment  secure  the  greatest  good  of 
the  greatest  number,  if  his  unpopularity  reacts  on  you 
to  the  extent  of  hindering  your  career?" 
[254] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

The  Governor's  brow  cleared  and  he  rose  with  a  smile. 
"My  dear,  your  reasoning  is  admirable,  but  we  must  leave 
my  career  to  take  care  of  itself.  Whatever  I  may  be  to 
morrow  I  am  Governor  of  Midsylvania  to-day,  and  my 
business  as  Governor  is  to  appoint  as  Attorney-General 
the  best  man  I  can  find  for  the  place — and  the  best  man 
is  George  Fleetwood,  unless  you  have  a  better  to  propose." 

She  met  this  with  perfect  good- humour.  "No;  I  have 
told  you  already  that  that's  not  my  business.  But  I  have  a 
candidate  of  my  own  for  another  office,  so  Grace  was  not 
quite  wrong,  after  all." 

"Well,  who  is  your  candidate,  and  for  what  office?  I 
only  hope  you  don't  want  to  change  cooks!" 

"Oh,  I  do  that  without  your  authority,  and  you  never 
even  know  it  has  been  done."  She  hesitated,  and  then 
said  with  a  bright  directness:  "I  want  you  to  do  some 
thing  for  poor  Gregg." 

"Gregg?  Rufus  Gregg?"  He  stared.  "What  a  strange 
request !  What  can  I  do  for  a  man  I've  had  to  kick  out  for 
dishonesty  ?  " 

"Not  much,  perhaps;  I  know  it's  difficult.  But,  after  all, 
it  was  your  kicking  him  out  that  ruined  him." 

"It  was  his  dishonesty  that  ruined  him.  He  was  getting 
a  good  salary  as  my  stenographer,  and  if  he  hadn't  sold 
those  letters  to  the  '  Spy '  he  would  have  been  getting  it  still." 

She  wavered.  "After  all,  nothing  was  proved — he  al 
ways  denied  it." 

[255] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"Good  heavens,  Ella!  Have  you  ever  doubted  his 
guilt?" 

"No — no;  I  don't  mean  that.  But  of  course  his  wife 
and  children  believe  in  him,  and  think  you  were  cruel,  and 
he  has  been  out  of  work  so  long  that  they're  starving." 

"Send  them  some  money,  then;  I  wonder  you  thought 
it  necessary  to  ask.'* 

"I  shouldn't  have  thought  it  so,  but  money  is  not  what 
I  want.  Mrs.  Gregg  is  proud,  and  it's  hard  to  help  her  in 
that  way.  Couldn't  you  give  him  work  of  some  kind — 
just  a  little  post  in  a  corner  ?" 

"My  dear  child,  the  little  posts  in  the  corner  are  just 
the  ones  where  honesty  is  essential.  A  footpad  doesn't 
wait  under  a  street-lamp!  Besides,  how  can  I  recommend 
a  man  whom  I've  dismissed  for  theft?  I'll  say  nothing 
to  hinder  his  getting  a  place,  but  on  my  conscience  I 
can't  give  him  one." 

She  paused  and  turned  toward  the  door  silently,  though 
without  any  show  of  resentment;  but  on  the  threshold  she 
lingered  long  enough  to  say:  "Yet  you  gave  Fleet  wood  his 
chance!" 

"Fleetwood?  You  class  Fleetwood  with  Gregg?  The 
best  man  in  the  State  with  a  little  beggarly  thieving  non 
entity?  It's  clear  enough  you're  new  at  wire-pujling,  or 
you'd  show  more  skill  at  it!" 

She  met  this  with  a  laugh.  "I'm  not  likely  to  have 
much  practice  if  my  first  attempt  is  such  a  failure.  Well, 
[256] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

I'll  see  if  Mrs.   Gregg  will  let  me  help  her  a  little — I 
suppose  there's  nothing  else  to  be  done." 

"Nothing  that  we  can  do.  If  Gregg  wants  a  place  he 
had  better  get  one  on  the  staff  of  the  'Spy.'  He  served 
them  better  than  he  did  me." 


HI 


^  I  ^HE  Governor  stared  at  the  card  with  a  frown. 

-*-  Half  an  hour  had  elapsed  since  his  wife  had  gone 
upstairs  to  dress  for  the  big  dinner  from  which  official 
duties  excused  him,  and  he  was  still  lingering  over  the 
fire  before  preparing  for  his  own  solitary  meal.  He  ex 
pected  no  one  that  evening  but  his  old  friend  Hadley 
Shackwell,  with  whom  it  was  his  long-established  habit  to 
talk  over  his  defeats  and  victories  in  the  first  lull  after  the 
conflict;  and  Shackwell  was  not  likely  to  turn  up  till  nine. 
The  unwonted  stillness  of  the  room,  and  the  knowledge 
that  he  had  a  quiet  evening  before  him,  filled  the  Gov 
ernor  with  a  luxurious  sense  of  repose.  The  world  seemed 
to  him  a  good  place  to  be  in,  and  his  complacency  was 
shadowed  only  by  the  fear  that  he  had  perhaps  been  a 
trifle  harsh  in  refusing  his  wife's  plea  for  the  stenographer. 
There  seemed,  therefore,  a  certain  fitness  in  the  appear 
ance  of  the  man's  card,  and  the  Governor  with  a  sigh  gave 
orders  that  Gregg  should  be  admitted. 

Gregg   was   still   the   soft-stepping   scoundrel   who   in- 
[257] 


THE    BEST   MAN 

vited  the  toe  of  honesty,  and  Mornway,  as  he  entered, 
was  conscious  of  a  sharp  revulsion  of  feeling.  But  it  was 
impossible  to  evade  the  interview,  and  he  sat  silent  while 
the  man  stated  his  case. 

Mrs.  Mornway  had  represented  the  stenographer  as 
being  in  desperate  straits,  and  ready  to  accept  any  job 
that  could  be  found,  but  though  his  appearance  might 
have  seemed  to  corroborate  her  account  he  apparently 
took  a  less  hopeless  view  of  his  case,  and  the  Governor 
found  with  surprise  that  he  had  fixed  his  eye  on  a  clerk 
ship  in  one  of  the  Government  offices,  a  post  which  had 
been  half  promised  him  before  the  incident  of  the  letters. 
His  plea  was  that  the  Governor's  charge,  though  un 
proved,  had  so  injured  his  reputation  that  he  could  hope 
to  clear  himself  only  by  getting  some  sort  of  small  job 
under  the  administration.  After  that  it  would  be  easy  for 
him  to  obtain  any  employment  he  wanted. 

He  met  Mornway 's  refusal  with  civility,  but  remarked  after 
a  moment:  "I  hadn't  expected  this,  Governor.  Mrs.  Morn- 
way  led  me  to  think  that  something  might  be  arranged." 

The  Governor's  tone  was  brief.  "Mrs.  Mornway  is 
sorry  for  your  wife  and  children,  and  for  their  sake  would 
be  glad  to  find  work  for  you,  but  she  could  not  have  led 
you  to  think  that  there  was  any  chance  of  your  getting  a 
clerkship." 

"Well,  that's  just  it;  she  said  she  thought  she  could 

manage  it." 

[258] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"You  have  misinterpreted  my  wife's  interest  in  your 
family.  Mrs.  Mornway  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  distri 
bution  of  Government  offices."  The  Governor  broke  off, 
annoyed  to  find  himself  asserting  for  the  second  time  so 
obvious  a  fact. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence;  then  Gregg  said,  still 
in  a  perfectly  equable  tone:  "You've  always  been  hard  on 
me,  Governor,  but  I  don't  bear  malice.  You  accused  me 
of  selling  those  letters  to  the  'Spy'—" 

The  Governor  made  an  impatient  gesture. 

"You  couldn't  prove  your  case,"  Gregg  went  on,  "but 
you  were  right  in  one  respect.  I  was  on  confidential  terms 
with  the  'Spy.'"  He  paused  and  glanced  at  Mornway, 
whose  face  remained  immovable.  "I'm  on  the  same  terms 
with  them  still,  and  I'm  ready  to  let  you  have  the  benefit 
of  it  if  you'll  give  me  the  chance  to  retrieve  my  good  name." 

In  spite  of  his  irritation  the  Governor  could  not  repress 
a  smile. 

"In  other  words,  you'll  do  a  dirty  trick  for  me  if  I 
undertake  to  convince  people  that  you're  the  soul  of 
honour." 

Gregg  smiled  also. 

"There  are  always  two  ways  of  putting  a  thing.  Why 
not  call  it  a  plain  case  of  give  and  take  ?  I  want  something 
and  can  pay  for  it." 

"Not  in  any  coin  I  have  a  use  for,"  said  Mornway, 
pushing  back  his  chair. 

[259] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

Gregg  hesitated;  then  he  said:  "Perhaps  you  don't 
mean  to  reappoint  Fleetwood."  The  Governor  was  silent, 
and  he  continued:  "If  you  do,  don't  kick  me  out  a  second 
time.  I'm  not  threatening  you — I'm  speaking  as  a  friend. 
Mrs.  Morn  way  has  been  kind  to  us,  and  I'd  like  to  help  her." 

The  Governor  rose,  gripping  his  chair-back  sternly. 
"You'll  be  kind  enough  to  leave  my  wife's  name  out  of 
the  discussion.  I  supposed  you  knew  me  well  enough  to 
know  that  I  don't  buy  newspaper  secrets  at  any  price, 
least  of  all  at  that  of  the  public  money!" 

Gregg,  who  had  risen  also,  stood  a  few  feet  off,  looking 
at  him  inscrutably. 

"Is  that  final,  Governor?" 

"Quite  final." 

"Well,  good-evening." 


IV 


QHACKWELL  and  the  Governor  sat  over  the  even- 
^  ing  embers.  It  was  after  ten  o'clock,  and  the  servant 
had  carried  away  the  coffee  and  liqueurs,  leaving  the 
two  men  to  their  cigars.  Mornway  had  once  more  lapsed 
into  his  arm-chair,  and  sat  with  outstretched  feet,  gazing 
comfortably  at  his  friend. 

Shackwell  was  a  small  dry  man  of  fifty,  with  a  face 
as  sallow  and  freckled   as  a  winter  pear,  a  limp  mous 
tache  and  shrewd  melancholy  eyes. 
[260] 


THE   BEST    MAN 

"I'm  glad  you  have  given  yourself  a  day's  rest,"  he 
said,  looking  at  the  Governor. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  needed  it.  There's  such 
exhilaration  in  victory  that  I  never  felt  fresher." 

"Ah,  but  the  fight's  just  beginning." 

"I  know — but  I'm  ready  for  it.  You  mean  the  cam 
paign  against  Fleetwood.  I  understand  there  is  to  be  a 
big  row.  Well,  he  and  I  are  used  to  rows." 

Shackwell  paused,  surveying  his  cigar.  "You  knew 
the  'Spy'  meant  to  lead  the  attack ?" 

"Yes.  I  was  offered  a  glimpse  of  the  documents  this 
afternoon." 

Shackwell  started  up.  "You  didn't  refuse?" 

Morn  way  related  the  incident  of  Gregg's  visit.  "I  could 
hardly  buy  my  information  at  that  price,"  he  said,  "  and, 
besides,  it's  really  Fleetwood's  business  this  time.  I  sup 
pose  he  has  heard  the  report,  but  it  doesn't  seem  to  bother 
him.  I  rather  thought  he  would  have  looked  in  to-day  to 
talk  things  over,  but  I  haven't  seen  him." 

Shackwell  continued  to  twist  his  cigar  through  his 
fingers  without  remembering  to  light  it.  "You're  de 
termined  to  reappoint  Fleetwood?"  he  asked. 

The  Governor  caught  him  up.  "You're  the  fourth  per 
son  who  has  asked  me  that  to-day !  You  haven't  lost  faith 
in  him,  have  you,  Hadley  ?" 

"Not  an  atom!"  said  the  other  with  emphasis. 

"Well,  then,  what  are  you  all  thinking  of,  to  suppose 
[2611 


THE   BEST   MAN 

I  can  be  frightened  by  a  little  newspaper  talk  ?  Besides,  if 
Fleetwood  is  not  afraid,  why  should  I  be?" 

"Because  you'll  be  involved  in  it  with  him." 

The  Governor  laughed.  "What  have  they  got  against 
me  now?" 

Shackwell,  standing  up,  confronted  his  friend  sol 
emnly.  "This — that  Fleetwood  bought  his  appointment 
two  years  ago." 

"Ah — bought  it  of  me?  Why  didn't  it  come  out  at  the 
time?" 

"Because  it  wasn't  known.  It  has  only  been  found  out 
lately." 

"Known — found  out?  This  is  magnificent!  What  was 
my  price,  and  what  did  I  do  with  the  money  ? " 

Shackwell  glanced  about  the  room,  and  his  eyes  re 
turned  to  Mornway's  face. 

"Look  here,  John,  Fleetwood  is  not  the  only  man  in 
the  world." 

"The  only  man?" 

"The  only  Attorney-General.  The  'Spy'  has  the  Lead 
Trust  behind  it  and  means  to  put  up  a  savage  fight.  Mud 
sticks,  and — " 

"Hadley,  is  this  a  conspiracy?  You're  saying  to  me 
just  what  Ella  said  this  afternoon." 

At  the  mention  of  Mrs.  Mornway's  name  a  silence 
fell  between  the  two  men  and  the  Governor  moved  un 
easily  in  his  chair. 

[262] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"You  are  not  advising  me  to  chuck  Fleetwood  be 
cause  the  'Spy'  is  going  to  accuse  me  of  having  sold 
him  his  first  appointment?"  he  said  at  length. 

Shackwell  drew  a  deep  breath.  "You  say  yourself  that 
Mrs.  Mornway  gave  you  the  same  advice  this  afternoon." 

"Well,  what  of  that?  Do  you  imagine  that  my  wife 
distrib — "  The  Governor  broke  off  with  an  exasperated 
laugh. 

Shackwell,  leaning  against  the  mantelpiece,  looked 
down  into  the  embers.  "I  didn't  say  the  'Spy*  meant 
to  accuse  you  of  having  sold  the  office." 

Mornway  stood  up  slowly,  his  eyes  on  his  friend's 
averted  face.  The  ashes  dropped  from  his  cigar,  scatter 
ing  a  white  trail  across  the  carpet  which  had  excited  Mrs. 
Nimick's  envy. 

"The  office  is  in  my  gift.  If  I  didn't  sell  it,  who  did?" 
he  demanded. 

Shackwell  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm.  "For  heaven's  sake, 
John—" 

"Who  did,  who  did?"  the  Governor  violently  repeated. 

The  two  men  faced  each  other  in  the  curtained  silence 
of  the  dim  luxurious  room.  ShackwelTs  eyes  again  wan 
dered,  as  if  summoning  the  walls  to  reply.  Then  he 
said:  "I  have  positive  information  that  the  'Spy'  will  say 
nothing  if  you  don't  appoint  Fleetwood." 

"And  what  will  it  say  if  I  do?" 

"That  he  bought  his  first  appointment  from  your  wife." 
[263] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

The  Governor  stood  silent,  immovable,  while  the 
blood  crept  slowly  from  his  strong  neck  to  his  lowering 
brows.  Once  he  laughed,  then  he  set  his  lips  and  continued 
to  gaze  into  the  fire.  After  a  while  he  looked  at  his  cigar 
and '  shook  the  freshly  formed  cone  of  ashes  carefully 
on  the  hearth.  He  had  just  turned  again  to  Shackwell 
when  the  door  opened  and  the  butler  announced:  "Mr. 
Fleet  wood." 

The  room  swam  about  Shackwell,  and  when  he  re 
covered  himself  Mornway,  with  outstretched  hand,  was 
advancing  quietly  to  meet  his  guest. 

Fleetwood  was  a  smaller  man  than  the  Governor.  He 
was  erect  and  compact,  with  a  dry  energetic  face  which 
seemed  to  press  forward  with  the  spring  of  his  prominent 
features,  as  though  it  were  the  weapon  with  which  he 
cleared  his  way  through  the  world.  He  was  in  evening 
dress,  scrupulously  appointed,  but  pale  and  nervous.  Of 
the  two  men,  it  was  Mornway  who  was  the  more  com 
posed. 

"I  thought  I  should  have  seen  you  before  this,"  he  said. 

Fleetwood  returned  his  grasp  and  shook  hands  with 
Shackwell. 

"I  knew  you  needed  to  be  let  alone.  I  didn't  mean  to 
come  to-night,  but  I  wanted  to  say  a  word  to  you." 

At  this  Shackwell,  who  had  fallen  into  the  background, 
made  a  motion  of  leave-taking;  but  the  Governor  ar 
rested  it. 

[264] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"We  haven't  any  secrets  from  Hadley,  have  we,  Fleet- 
wood?" 

"  Certainly  not.  I  am  glad  to  have  him  stay.  I've  simply 
come  to  say  that  I've  been  thinking  over  my  future  ar 
rangements,  and  that  I  find  it  will  not  be  possible  for  me 
to  continue  in  office." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  during  which  Shackwell  kept 
his  eyes  on  Mornway.  The  Governor  had  turned  pale,  but 
when  he  spoke  his  voice  was  full  and  firm. 

"This  is  sudden,"  he  said. 

Fleetwood  stood  leaning  against  a  high  chair-back, 
fretting  its  carved  ornaments  with  restless  fingers.  "It 
is  sudden — yes.  I — there  are  a  variety  of  reasons." 

"Is  one  of  them  the  fact  that  you're  afraid  of  what  the 
'Spy'  is  going  to  say?" 

The  Attorney-General  flushed  deeply  and  moved  away 
a  few  steps.  "I'm  sick  of  mud-throwing,"  he  muttered. 

"George  Fleetwood!"  Mornway  exclaimed.  He  had 
advanced  toward  his  friend,  and  the  two  stood  con 
fronting  each  other,  already  oblivious  of  Shack  well's 
presence. 

"It's  not  only  that,  of  course.  I've  been  frightfully 
hard- worked.  My  health  has  given  way — " 

"Since  yesterday?" 

Fleetwood  forced  a  smile.  "My  dear  fellow,  what  a 
slave-driver  you  are!  Hasn't  a  man  the  right  to  take  a 
rest?" 

[265] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"Not  a  soldier  on  the  eve  of  battle.  You've  never  failed 
me  before." 

"I  don't  want  to  fail  you  now.  But  it  isn't  the  eve  of 
battle — you're  in,  and  that's  the  main  thing." 

"The  main  thing  at  present  is  that  you  promised  to 
stay  in  with  me,  and  that  I  must  have  your  real  reason 
for  breaking  your  word." 

Fleetwood  made  a  deprecatory  movement.  "My  dear 
Governor,  if  you  only  knew  it,  I'm  doing  you  a  service  in 
backing  out." 

"A  service— why?" 

"Because  I'm  hated — because  the  Lead  Trust  wants 
my  blood,  and  will  have  yours  too  if  you  appoint  me." 

"Ah,  that's  the  real  reason,  then — you're  afraid  of 
the  'Spy'?" 

"Afraid—?" 

The  Governor  continued  to  speak  with  dry  deliberation. 
"Evidently,  then,  you  know  what  they  mean  to  say." 

Fleetwood  laughed.  "One  needn't  do  that  to  be  sure  it 
will  be  abominable!" 

"Who  cares  how  abominable,  if  it's  untrue?" 

Fleetwood  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  was  silent. 
Shackwell,  from  a  distant  seat,  uttered  a  faint  protesting 
sound,  but  no  one  heard.  The  Governor  stood  squarely 
before  Fleetwood,  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  "It  is  true, 
then?"  he  demanded. 

"What  is  true?" 

[266] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"What  the  'Spy'  means  to  say — that  you  bought  my 
wife's  influence  to  get  your  first  appointment." 

In  the  silence  Shackwell  started  to  his  feet.  A  sound 
of  carriage-wheels  had  disturbed  the  quiet  street.  They 
paused  and  then  rolled  up  the  semicircle  to  the  door  of 
the  Executive  Mansion. 

"John!"  Shackwell  warned  him. 

The  Governor  turned  impatiently;  there  was  the  sound 
of  a  servant's  steps  in  the  hall,  followed  by  the  opening  and 
closing  of  the  outer  door. 

"Your  wife — Mrs.  Mornway!"  Shackwell  cried. 

Another  step,  accompanied  by  a  soft  rustle  of  skirts, 
was  advancing  toward  the  library. 

"My  wife?  Let  her  come!"  said  the  Governor. 


1 


E  stood  before  them  in  her  bright  evening  dress, 
with  an  arrested  brilliancy  of  aspect  like  the  sparkle 
of  a  fountain  suddenly  caught  in  ice.  Her  look  moved 
from  one  to  the  other;  then  she  came  forward,  while  Shack- 
well  slipped  behind  her  to  close  the  door. 
"What  has  happened?"  she  said. 
Shackwell  began  to  speak,  but  the  Governor  interposed 
calmly:  "Fleetwood  has  come  to  tell  me  that  he  does  not 
wish  to  remain  in  office." 
"Ah!"  she  murmured. 

[267] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

There  was  another  silence.  Fleetwood  broke  it  by  say 
ing:  "It  is  getting  late.  If  you  want  to  see  me  to-morrow — " 

The  Governor  looked  from  his  face  to  Ella's.  "Yes; 
good-night,"  he  said. 

Shackwell  moved  in  Fleetwood's  wake  to  the  door. 
Mrs.  Mornway  stood  with  her  head  high,  smiling  slightly. 
She  shook  hands  with  each  of  the  men  in  turn;  then 
she  moved  toward  the  sofa  and  laid  aside  her  shining 
cloak.  All  her  gestures  were  calm  and  noble,  but  as  she 
raised  her  hand  to  unclasp  the  cloak  her  husband  uttered 
a  sudden  exclamation. 

"Where  did  you  get  that  bracelet  ?  I  don't  remember  it." 

"This?"  She  looked  at  him  with  astonishment.  "It 
belonged  to  my  mother.  I  don't  often  wear  it.'* 

"Ah — I  shall  suspect  everything  now,"  he  groaned. 

He  turned  away  and  flung  himself  with  bowed  head 
in  the  chair  behind  his  writing-table.  He  wanted  to  col 
lect  himself,  to  question  her,  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  the 
hideous  abyss  over  which  his  imagination  tottered.  But 
what  was  the  use  ?  What  did  the  facts  matter  ?  He  had  only 
to  put  his  memories  together — they  led  him  straight  to 
the  truth.  Every  incident  of  the  day  seemed  to  point  a 
leering  finger  in  the  same  direction,  from  Mrs.  Nimick's 
allusion  to  the  damask  curtains  to  Gregg's  confident  ap 
peal  for  rehabilitation. 

"If  you  imagine  that  my  wife  distributes  patronage — " 
he  heard  himself  repeating  inanely,  and  the  walls  seemed 
[268] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

to  reverberate  with  the  laughter  which  his  sister  and 
Gregg  had  suppressed.  He  heard  Ella  rise  from  the  sofa 
and  lifted  his  head. 

"Sit  still!"  he  commanded. 

She  sank  back  without  speaking,  and  he  hid  his  face 
again.  The  past  months,  the  past  years,  were  dancing  a 
witches'  dance  about  him.  He  remembered  a  hundred  sig 
nificant  things.  .  . .  Oh,  God,  he  cried  to  himself,  if  only 
she  does  not  lie  about  it !  Suddenly  he  recalled  having  pitied 
Mrs.  Nimick  because  she  could  not  penetrate  to  the  es 
sence  of  his  happiness.  Those  were  the  very  words  he  had 
used!  He  heard  himself  laugh  aloud.  The  clock  struck — 
it  went  on  striking  interminably.  At  length  he  heard  his 
wife  rise  again  and  say  with  sudden  authority:  "John, 
you  must  speak." 

Authority — she  spoke  to  him  with  authority!  He  laughed 
again,  and  through  his  laugh  he  heard  the  senseless  rattle 
of  the  words  "If  you  imagine  that  my  wife  distributes 
patronage ..." 

He  looked  up  and  saw  her  standing  before  him.  If  only 
she  would  not  lie  about  it!  He  said:  "You  see  what  has 
happened." 

"I  suppose  some  one  has  told  you  about  the  'Spy.'" 

"Who  told  you?  Gregg?"  he  interposed. 

"Yes,"  she  said  quietly. 

"That  was  why  you  wanted — ?" 

"Why  I  wanted  you  to  help  him?  Yes." 
[269] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

"Oh,  God! ...  He  wouldn't  take  money?" 

"No,  he  wouldn't  take  money." 

He  sat  silent,  looking  at  her,  noting  with  a  morbid 
minuteness  the  exquisite  finish  of  her  dress,  that  finish 
which  seemed  so  much  a  part  of  herself  that  it  had  never 
before  struck  him  as  a  mere  purchasable  accessory.  He 
knew  so  little  what  a  woman's  dresses  cost !  For  a  moment 
he  lost  himself  in  vague  calculations;  finally  he  said:  "What 
did  you  do  it  for?" 

"Do  what?" 

"Take  money  from  Fleetwood." 

She  paused  a  moment  before  replying:  " If  you  will  let 
me  explain — " 

And  then  he  saw  that,  all  along,  he  had  thought  she 
would  be  able  to  disprove  it!  A  smothering  blackness 
closed  in  on  him,  and  he  had  a  physical  struggle  for 
breath.  He  forced  himself  to  his  feet  and  said:  "He  was 
your  lover?" 

"Oh,  no,  no,  no  /"  she  cried  with  conviction.  He  hardly 
knew  whether  the  shadow  lifted  or  deepened;  the  fact 
that  he  instantly  believed  her  seemed  only  to  increase  his 
bewilderment.  Presently  he  found  that  she  was  still  speak 
ing,  and  he  began  to  listen  to  her,  catching  a  phrase  now 
and  then  through  the  deafening  noise  of  his  thoughts. 

It  amounted  to  this — that  just  after  her  husband's  first 
election,  when  Fleetwood's  claims  for  the  Attorney- 
Generalship  were  being  vainly  pressed  by  a  group  of  his 
[270] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

political  backers,  Mrs.  Mornway  had  chanced  to  sit  next 
to  him  once  or  twice  at  dinner.  One  day,  on  the  strength 
of  these  meetings,  he  had  called  and  asked  her  frankly  if 
she  would  not  help  him  with  her  husband.  He  made 
a  clean  breast  of  his  past,  but  said  that,  under  a  man 
like  Mornway,  he  felt  he  could  wipe  out  his  political  sins 
and  purify  himself  while  he  served  the  party.  She  knew 
the  party  needed  his  brains,  and  she  believed  in  him — she 
was  sure  he  would  keep  his  word.  She  would  have  spoken 
in  his  favour  in  any  case — she  would  have  used  all  her 
influence  to  overcome  her  husband's  prejudice — and  it 
was  by  a  mere  accident  that,  in  the  course  of  one  of  their 
talks,  he  happened  to  give  her  a  "tip"  (his  past  connec 
tions  were  still  useful  for  such  purposes),  a  "tip"  which, 
in  the  first  invading  pressure  of  debt  after  Mornway 's 
election,  she  had  not  had  the  courage  to  refuse.  Fleetwood 
had  made  some  money  for  her — yes,  about  thirty  thousand 
dollars.  She  had  repaid  what  he  had  lent  her,  and  there 
had  been  no  farther  transactions  of  the  kind  between  them. 
But  it  appeared  that  Gregg,  before  his  dismissal,  had  got 
hold  of  an  old  cheque-book  which  gave  a  hint  of  the  story, 
and  had  pieced  the  rest  together  with  the  help  of  a  clerk 
in  Fleetwood's  office.  The  "Spy"  was  in  possession  of 
the  facts,  but  did  not  mean  to  use  them  if  Fleetwood  was 
not  reappointed,  the  Lead  Trust  having  no  personal 
grudge  against  Mornway. 

Her  story  ended  there,  and  she  sat  silent  while  her  hus- 
[271] 


THE    BEST   MAN 

band  continued  to  look  at  her.  So  much  had  perished  in 
the  wreck  of  his  faith  that  he  did  not  attach  great  value  to 
what  remained.  It  scarcely  mattered  that  he  believed  her 
when  the  truth  was  so  sordid.  There  had  been,  after  all, 
nothing  to  envy  him  for  but  what  Mrs.  Nimick  had  seen; 
the  core  of  his  life  was  as  mean  and  miserable  as  his 
sister's  .... 

His  wife  rose  at  length,  pale  but  still  calm.  She  had  a 
kind  of  external  dignity  which  she  wore  like  one  of  her 
rich  dresses.  It  seemed  as  little  a  part  of  her  now  as  the 
finery  of  which  his  gaze  contemptuously  reckoned  the  cost. 

"John — "  she  began,  laying  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

He  looked  up  wearily.  "  You'd  better  go  to  bed,"  he  said. 

"Don't  look  at  me  in  that  way.  I'm  prepared  for  your 
being  angry  with  me — I  made  a  dreadful  mistake  and  must 
bear  my  punishment:  any  punishment  you  choose  to  in 
flict.  But  you  must  think  of  yourself  first — you  must  spare 
yourself.  Why  should  you  be  so  horribly  unhappy  ?  Don't 
you  see  that  since  Mr.  Fleetwood  has  behaved  so  well 
we're  quite  safe  ?  And  I  swear  to  you  I've  paid  back  every 
penny." 

VI 

'T'^HREE  days  later  Shackwell  was  summoned  by  tele- 

•*•     phone  to  the  Governor's  office  in  the  Capitol.  There 

had  been,   in   the   interval,   no   communication   between 

the  two,  and  the  papers  had  been  silent  or  noncommittal. 

[272] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

In  the  lobby  Shackwell  met  Fleetwood  leaving  the 
building.  For  a  moment  the  Attorney-General  seemed 
about  to  speak;  then  he  nodded  and  passed  on,  leaving 
to  Shackwell  the  impression  of  a  face  more  than  ever 
thrust  forward  like  a  weapon. 

The  Governor  sat  behind  his  desk  in  the  autumn  sun 
light.  In  contrast  to  Fleetwood  he  seemed  relaxed  and  un 
wieldy,  and  the  face  he  turned  to  his  friend  had  a  gray  look 
of  convalescence.  Shackwell  wondered,  with  a  start  of  ap 
prehension,  if  he  and  Fleetwood  had  been  together. 

He  relieved  himself  of  his  overcoat  without  speaking, 
and  when  he  turned  again  toward  Mornway  he  was  sur 
prised  to  find  the  latter  watching  him  with  a  smile. 

"It's  good  to  see  you,  Hadley,"  the  Governor  said. 

"I  waited  to  be  sent  for;  I  knew  you'd  let  me  know 
when  you  wanted  me,"  Shackwell  replied. 

"I  didn't  send  for  you  on  purpose.  If  I  had  I  might 
have  asked  your  advice,  and  I  didn't  want  to  ask  any 
body's  advice  but  my  own."  The  Governor  spoke  steadily, 
but  in  a  voice  a  trifle  too  well  controlled  to  be  natural. 
"I've  had  a  three  days'  conference  with  myself,"  he  con 
tinued,  "and  now  that  everything  is  settled  I  want  you  to 
do  me  a  favour." 

"Yes?"  Shackwell  assented.  The  private  issues  of  the 

affair  were  still  wrapped  in  mystery  to  him,  but  he  had 

never  had  a  moment's  doubt  as  to  its  public  solution,  and 

he  had  no  difficulty  in  conjecturing  the  nature  of  the  service 

[273] 


THE   BEST  MAN 

he  was  to  render.  His  heart  ached  for  Mornway,  but  he 
was  glad  the  inevitable  step  was  to  be  taken  without 
farther  delay. 

"Everything  is  settled/*  the  Governor  repeated,  "and 
I  want  you  to  notify  the  press  that  I've  decided  to  reappoint 
Fleetwood." 

Shackwell  bounded  from  his  seat.  "Good  heavens!" 

"To  reappoint  Fleetwood,"  the  Governor  repeated, 
"because  at  the  present  juncture  of  affairs  he's  the  only 
man  for  the  place.  The  work  we  began  together  is  not 
finished,  and  I  can't  finish  it  without  him.  Remember 
the  vistas  opened  by  the  Lead  Trust  investigation — he 
knows  where  they  lead  and  no  one  else  does.  We  must 
put  that  enquiry  through,  no  matter  what  it  costs  us,  and 
that's  why  I've  sent  for  you  to  take  this  letter  to  the l  Spy. ' " 

Shackwell's  hand  drew  back  from  the  proffered  envelope. 

"You  say  you  don't  want  my  advice,  but  you  can't  ex 
pect  me  to  go  on  such  an  errand  with  my  eyes  shut.  What 
on  earth  are  you  driving  at  ?  Of  course  Fleetwood  will  per 
sist  in  refusing." 

Mornway  smiled.  "He  did  persist — for  three  hours. 
But  when  he  left  here  just  now  he'd  given  me  his  word 
to  accept." 

Shackwell  groaned.  "Then  I'm  dealing  with  two  mad 
men  instead  of  one." 

The  Governor  laughed.  "My  poor  Hadley,  you're  worse 
than  I  expected.  I  thought  you  would  understand  me." 
[274] 


THE    BEST   MAN 

"Understand  you  ?  How  can  I,  in  heaven's  name,  when 
I  don't  understand  the  situation  ?  " 

"The  situation — the  situation?"  Morn  way  repeated 
slowly.  "Whose?  His  or  mine?  I  don't  either — I  haven't 
had  time  to  think  of  them." 

"What  on  earth  have  you  been  thinking  of,  then?" 

The  Governor  rose,  with  a  gesture  toward  the  window, 
through  which,  below  the  slope  of  the  Capitol  grounds, 
the  roofs  and  steeples  of  the  city  spread  their  smoky  mass 
to  the  mild  air. 

"Of  all  that  is  left,"  he  said.  "Of  everything  except 
Fleetwood  and  myself." 

"Ah — "  Shackwell  murmured. 

Morn  way  turned  back  and  sank  into  his  seat.  "Don't 
you  see  that  was  all  I  had  to  turn  to?  The  State — the 
country — it's  big  enough,  in  all  conscience,  to  fill  a  good 
deal  of  a  void !  My  own  walls  had  grown  too  cramped  for 
me,  so  I  just  stepped  outside.  You've  no  idea  how  it 
simplified  matters.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to  say  to  myself: 
*Go  ahead,  and  do  the  best  you  can  for  the  country.' 
The  personal  issue  simply  didn't  exist." 

"Yes— and  then?" 

"Then  I  turned  over  for  three  days  this  question  of  the 
Attorney-Generalship.  I  couldn't  see  that  it  was  changed — 
how  should  my  feelings  have  affected  it?  Fleetwood 
hasn't  betrayed  the  State.  There  isn't  a  scar  on  his  public 
record — he's  still  the  best  man  for  the  place.  My  business 
[275] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

is  to  appoint  the  best  man  I  can  find,  and  I  can't  find  any 
one  as  good  as  Fleet  wood." 

"But — but — your  wife?"  Shackwell  stammered. 

The  Governor  looked  up  with  surprise.  Shackwell  could 
almost  have  sworn  that  he  had  indeed  forgotten  the  private 
issue. 

"My  wife  is  ready  to  face  the  consequences,"  he  said. 

Shackwell  returned  to  his  former  attitude  of  incredulity. 

"But  Fleetwood?  Fleetwood  has  no  right  to  sacri 
fice—" 

"To  sacrifice  my  wife  to  the  State?  Oh,  let  us  beware 
of  big  words.  Fleetwood  was  inclined  to  use  them  at  first, 
but  I  managed  to  restore  his  sense  of  proportion.  I  showed 
him  that  our  private  lives  are  only  a  few  feet  square,  and 
that  really,  to  breathe  freely,  one  must  get  out  of  them 
into  the  open."  He  paused  and  broke  out  with  sudden 
violence:  "My  God,  Hadley,  don't  you  see  that  Fleetwood 
had  to  obey  me?" 

"Yes — I  see  that,"  said  Shackwell,  with  reviving  ob 
stinacy.  "But  if  you've  reached  such  a  height  and  pulled 
him  up  to  your  side  it  seems  to  me  that  from  that  stand 
point  you  ought  to  get  an  even  clearer  view  of  the  madness 
of  your  position.  You  say  you've  decided  to  sacrifice  your 
own  feelings  and  your  wife's — though  I'm  not  so  sure  of 
your  right  to  dispose  of  her  voice  in  the  matter;  but  what 
if  you  sacrifice  the  party  and  the  State  as  well,  in  this  tran 
scendental  attempt  to  distinguish  between  private  and 
[276] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

public  honour  ?  You'll  have  to  answer  that  before  you  can 
get  me  to  carry  this  letter." 

The  Governor  did  not  blench  under  the  attack. 

"I  think  the  letter  will  answer  you,"  he  said. 

"The  letter?" 

"Yes.  It's  something  more  than  a  notification  of  Fleet- 
wood's  reappointment."  Mornway  paused  and  looked 
steadily  at  his  friend.  "You're  afraid  of  an  investigation 
— an  impeachment?  Well,  the  letter  anticipates  that." 

"How,  in  heaven's  name?" 

"  By  a  plain  statement  of  facts.  My  wife  has  told  me  that 
she  did  borrow  of  Fleet  wood.  He  speculated  for  her  and 
made  a  considerable  sum,  out  of  which  she  repaid  his 
loan.  The  'Spy's'  accusation  is  true.  If  it  can  be  proved 
that  my  wife  induced  me  to  appoint  Fleetwood,  it  may  be 
argued  that  she  sold  him  the  appointment.  But  it  can't  be 
proved,  and  the  'Spy'  won't  waste  its  breath  in  trying  to, 
because  my  statement  will  take  the  sting  out  of  its  innu 
endoes.  I  propose  to  forestall  its  attack  by  setting  forth 
the  facts  in  its  columns,  and  asking  the  public  to  decide 
between  us.  On  one  side  is  the  private  fact  that  my  wife, 
without  my  knowledge,  borrowed  money  from  Fleetwood 
just  before  I  appointed  him  to  an  important  post;  on  the 
other  side  is  his  public  record  and  mine.  I  want  people  to 
see  both  sides  and  judge  between  them,  not  in  the  red  glare 
of  a  newspaper  denunciation  but  in  the  plain  daylight  of 
common-sense.  Charges  against  the  private  morality  of 
,  [277] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

a  public  man  are  usually  made  in  such  a  blare  of  headlines 
and  cloud  of  mud-throwing  that  the  voice  he  lifts  up  in  his 
defence  can't  make  itself  heard.  In  this  case  I  want  the 
public  to  hear  what  I  have  to  say  before  the  yelping  be 
gins.  My  letter  will  take  the  wind  out  of  the  ' Spy's'  sails, 
and  if  the  verdict  goes  against  me  the  case  will  have  been 
decided  on  its  own  merits  and  not  at  the  dictation  of  the 
writers  of  scare-heads.  Even  if  I  don't  gain  my  end,  it  will 
be  a  good  thing,  for  once,  for  the  public  to  consider  dis 
passionately  how  far  a  private  calamity  should  be  allowed 
to  affect  a  career  of  public  usefulness,  and  the  next  man 
who  goes  through  what  I'm  undergoing  may  have  cause 
to  thank  me  if  no  one  else  does." 

Shackwell  sat  silent  for  a  moment,  the  ring  of  the  last 
words  in  his  ears. 

Suddenly  he  rose  and  held  out  his  hand.  "Give  me  the 
letter,"  he  said. 

The  Governor  smiled.  "It's  all  right,  then?  You  see, 
and  you'll  take  it?" 

Shackwell  met  his  glance  with  one  of  melancholy  inter 
rogation.  "I  see  a  magnificent  suicide — but  it's  the  kind 
of  way  I  shouldn't  mind  dying  myself." 

He  pulled  himself  silently  into  his  coat  and  put  the  letter 
in  one  of  its  pockets:  but  as  he  was  turning  to  the  door 
the  Governor  called  after  him  cheerfully:  "By  the  way, 
Hadley,  aren't  you  and  Mrs.  Shackwell  giving  a  big 
dinner  to-morrow?" 

[278] 


THE   BEST   MAN 

Shackwell  paused  with  a  look  of  surprise.  "I  believe 
we  are — why?" 

"Because,  if  there's  room  for  two  more,  my  wife  and 
I  would  like  to  be  invited." 

Shackwell  nodded  his  assent  and  turned  away  without 
answering.  As  he  came  out  of  the  lobby  into  the  sunset 
radiance  he  saw  a  victoria  drive  up  the  long  sweep  to 
the  Capitol  and  pause  before  the  central  portico.  He 
descended  the  steps,  and  Mrs.  Mornway  leaned  from  her 
furs  to  greet  him. 

"I  have  called  for  my  husband,"  she  said  smiling. 
"He  promised  to  get  away  in  time  for  a  little  turn  in  the 
Park  before  dinner." 


[279] 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


26Feb'6lDA 

REC'D  LD 

MAR  2  5  '68  -9  AM 

H'.fc    V     ".)' 

JUN  2  7  1369    X; 

2MAY'64BH 
JRFC'D  LD 

SEP    1  '69  -4PM 

REC'D  t.0 

W62S'$4-5P/W 

ifcWMff 

"  •--.>-.<•}  L.D 

°M  1  ]  '64 

1    4-*PM 

FEP    5  1968  3  3 

LD  21A-50m-4,'60 

(A9562slO)476B 


General  Library 

Unirersity  of  California 

Berkeley 


YB  69813 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


